#I really put a lot of time and effort into it

[changbinlov3r]

The very first night | L.M.

Pairing: Lee Know x afab!reader

Summary: after a few months of dating Minho, you two finally have your very first night.

Genre: fluff, smut, friends to lovers

Words count: ± 3,200

THIS ONE AND ALL MY CONTENTS ARE +18, MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!!

If you like my content don't forget to ✨reblog✨

Warnings: virgin!Minho, virgin!reader, very sloppy and eager sex, unprotected piv(wrap it before you tap it), fingering, oral(F receiving), biting(I think that's all)

A/N: I was reading this fic by @moonlinos and had this thought: "what would be like to have your first time with inexperienced bf Minho" and it came out like this 🥺 I'd like to tell @/moonlinos that I just found out about your blog and your writing is amazing, you're really an inspiration 🫶🏻

You met Minho on your first day of college, you were lost in the campus trying to find the orientation room when you bumped into someone, letting your books and bag fall to the floor.

It was your fault, you were looking around and didn't see the man coming in your direction. You apologized right away, more preoccupied with picking up your things rather than looking in his face but he didn't answer you, waiting for you to properly look him in the eyes.

To say that you two hit it off instantly when your eyes met his, it's an understatement. You even blinked a few times making sure you weren't dreaming. That guy was the prettiest man you have ever seen and it's not even an exaggeration. He was wearing a light pink sweater with a white dress shirt below, dark blue jeans and all stars. It was an outfit that would look average in anyone else but it looked like a masterpiece in him.

You didn't want to let him go so in the spur of the moment, you asked if he knew where to find the orientation for your major, just to find out he was also going there. After that day you two got closer like it was nothing, you were never good at making friends but it seemed so natural with him, like it just happened you didn't have to put a lot of effort into it.

You first realized your feelings for him when he told you he had a date coming up. You felt like throwing up and the ache on your chest just made the whole situation more excruciating.

You avoided him for a week after that, trying to convince yourself that you weren't in love with him or at least that you could pretend not to be in love with him.

When he showed up at your dorm in the middle of the night looking extremely tired, eye bags under his eyes and hair a mess, he inquired why you were being like that and you suddenly didn't want to pretend anymore. You decided in the split of a second that it was worth it to confess to him, so you did.

He blinked once, twice and for a third time, not letting out a single word, making you suddenly regret everything that you said to him. What if he wanted to end your friendship? You don't think you could handle losing him as your friend too.

But in an unexpected turn of events he stepped close to you, cupping your face with his hands and kissing you.

“I thought you didn't like me back”, he whispered after pulling away, breathless. “That's why I was trying to move on”

You felt relief wash all over you, so he liked you back it seems.

After months of dating, you still hadn't gone beyond kissing and some light touching. You always let things flow in your relationship, knowing that you two would give the next step when you were ready. And it was sooner than you expected.

The end of the semester had arrived, finals were finally over and you could take a deep breath. You and Minho would meet in the cafe in front of the college gates, grab some coffee and go back to his apartment to watch some movies and cuddle. His roommates would be out tonight partying to celebrate the end of the semester and the apartment would be just yours.

“Fried chicken or pizza?” He asks, scrolling on his phone while selecting something to order.

“Fried chicken?” You ask back, making him glare at you. He hates how indecisive you are so he always tries to give you few options.

“Ordered”, he tells you.

“I'm gonna take a shower”, you get up going to the bathroom.

Your bath is a bit longer than usual, you are not in a hurry today since you can stay up all night and sleep all day tomorrow but when you open your eyes there's a surprise in the wall next to you.

“Minho!” You yell, screaming like you just saw a ghost. You grab a towel and jump to the other side of the bathroom, watching as your boyfriend swings the door open, worry in his face.

When he looks at you and sees you are safe and sound, he scowls.

“What is it?” He rushes you, impatiently.

You point out in the bathroom, tears in your eyes.

“Did you make all this scandal because of a cockroach?” He asks, huffing but goes after it and kills it for you.

“You know I hate them”, you make a disgusted face. “They are gross”

He sighs, just now paying attention to you and noticing that you have only a towel covering you. You only remember that fact when his cheeks and ears turn pink and you look down, instantly covering your chest.

“Don't look!” You whine, hiding behind the door.

“Okay! Okay!” He puts his hands up in surrender, turning around and closing the door.

What follows after that is an awkward atmosphere, you are boyfriend and girlfriend but never have seen each other naked. You know it's something that is certain to happen but you never really discussed much about it.

You decide to address the issue when you are already on your second glass of soju. You look at him challengingly, narrowing your eyes.

“I think I should see you without a shirt since you have seen me too”, you tell him. It's not what you wanted to say, you wanted to ask if he ever thought about your first time but the moment you were going to say it you chickened out.

“I haven't seen you without a shirt though”, he says, “you were covered by a towel”

“But that's the equivalent of me being naked in front of you, so now you have to pay me back”, you roll out your words, trying to form a coherent sentence. You're not drunk enough to be doing that but you're definitely embarrassed enough to be doing that.

Minho sighs, knowing you won't drop it. So he puts his hands on the collar of his shirt, pulling it off, revealing his abs.

You can feel your cheeks burning, you have never seen him without a shirt and the only thing that comes to your mind to describe him is: tempting.

You gulped down, feeling a strange pool form in your panties, you can feel it getting soaked.

“I think now it's your time to pay me back”, he raises a brow, making you bite nervously on your bottom lip.

“I'm not wearing a bra”, you whisper, feeling your heart beat faster at each passing second.

“I wasn't either”, he jokes, making you punch him in the arm. When Minho doesn't look away, staring at you intensely, you realize he's being serious about that so you gather all the courage you have, grabbing the rem of your — well, it's actually his, shirt and pulling it off, letting it fall down to the ground as you become completely mesmerized by the look on his face.

Minho has his bottom lip stuck between his teeth, lust emanating out of him. You can see his chest rise and fall at a fast pace.

“Can… Can I touch you?” He asks, looking into your eyes desperately and you nod, watching as he comes closer, cupping your breasts with both of his hands. He's on his knees in front of you, kneading on the soft flesh of your chest. Minho pinches your nipple, groaning when you let a moan escape. He's sure it's the prettiest sound he has ever listened to.

He leans over you, taking your lips into his. The way he kisses you stays the same, calm and gentle. He trails wet kisses down your jaw, to your neck, seizing the opportunity to mark you with his teeth, something he loves to do and that's the closest he has ever been to your chest until today. He goes down tracing kisses till he's in front of your breasts, Minho kisses the hill between them and attaches his mouth to the right one, still massaging the left one, pinching the bud eventually because likes to hear you whimper and sigh.

Your hands go to his hair, pressing him against your chest. You have your eyes closed shut, probably an unflattering face of pure pleasure but you really don't care. Minho sucks at your other breast before going down, trailing wet kisses down your stomach.

You're embarrassed, no one has ever seen you so vulnerable like that and you really want to have him go down on you but you're a bit scared since your friends always talk about how guys find it a hassle to go down on girls. You know Minho is not an asshole, he won't want you to do the same to him if he can't pleasure you first.

“Can I?” He asks when he notices your hesitancy, his fingers are hooked at the waistband of your sweats, playing with the elastic while you decide if you'll let him continue.

“You don't have to feel obligated”, you bite on your bottom lip, not very sure on what to do next.

“I don't, I really want to do it”, he says, but seeing as you don't look like you believe him, he chuckles. “Chan said he really enjoys going down on his girlfriend, I wanted to try it since we started dating but didn't know how to ask”, you can see his ears turning a dark shade of red, making your heart beat faster.

You nod, feeling more nervous than before.

“Can we kiss a little bit more?” You ask and he nods frantically.

“We don't have to do anything tonight if you're not ready”, he says, hovering over you and kissing your neck.

“I'm ready”, you cup his face, making him look at you. “I'm just nervous”, you chuckle awkwardly.

“It's fine”, he gives you a peek on the lips. “Should we move to the bed?” He asks and you nod, getting up as Minho collects your things and his, following you to his bedroom.

It takes you half an hour of making out to grab Minho's hand and pull it down to your core, you lift the waistband of your sweats and panties so his hand can find your soaked pussy. He slides one of his fingers between your folds gathering your slick and pressing it on your clit.

“Is it good like this?” He asks, even though your face should give it in right away that he's pleasuring you.

“Yes, please don't stop”, you put your hands on his arms, digging your nails on his skin. Minho chuckles, doing what you asked but also adding another finger, making you open your eyes in an instant to stare at him with wide eyes. “Oh”, it's the only thing you can let out when you feel the knot forming on your lower stomach.

He kisses you, turning the experience into something much more deeper. By the way he kisses you, no longer the calm and gentle but now an eager and hungry kiss, you can feel how urgent he's feeling, how much he wants you and that's enough to make you come on his fingers.

You take a few deep breaths before opening your eyes just to witness your boyfriend putting his fingers into his mouth and licking them clean. You gulp, feeling a burn run through your body.

“Can I go down on you now?” He asks, eyeing you eagerly and you nod, still too dazed by your orgasm.

Minho doesn't lose time, moving to your bottom part and pulling off your pants and underwear with him. He looks at your pussy enamored, like you're the prettiest creature he has ever seen and that makes you embarrassed, moving your hands to cover yourself but your boyfriend shakes his head, preventing you from continuing.

“Don't cover yourself. You're so beautiful, I have no words to describe it”, he tells you, eyes so sincere you can't even tease him about lying.

You nod once more, laying down comfortably as he trails kisses up your legs. Minho kisses your ankles, then your calves. He follows the path to your knees, kissing the inside of each and then going to your thighs, doing the same thing. When he leans down on your core, you hold your breath, feeling his hitting on your skin. You have goosebumps all over your body when he kisses your clit, making you sigh and let go.

Minho licks a huge strip between your folds, gathering all the juice he can get on his tongue, enjoying your taste. You moan loudly, earning a glance from him, he was so concentrated by his own pleasure on feeling your pussy on his mouth that he forgot to check what was your reaction and he's glad to find that you're enjoying yourself, hands flying to his hair as you pull him more into your cunt. He keeps licking your clit, sucking and even biting just to make you shudder glaring at him. He chuckles every time, making the vibrations stimulate you even more.

Minho puts on a finger, testing the water to see how you react, he puts on another one when you look unbothered by just one, earning a reaction from you as you whine and moan. You can feel your second orgasm of the night being ripped out of you, as he intensifies his sucking on your clit and his fingers thrusting inside you.

You let out the louder couple of moans of the night, holding onto the sheets for dear life as you tremble and arch your back in pleasure. You're absolutely fucked out and have no idea how Minho can keep going, his hair is a mess and his lips are swollen, his face is covered on your juice from his mouth until his chin. When he kisses you again, you can feel your own taste on his tongue, making you groan.

You can feel his hardness pressing against your leg. He still has his pants on looking painfully tight.

“You wanna keep going?” He asks and you nod, biting on your lip. “I think Chan has some condoms stocked, I'm gonna take a look”, he starts moving out of the bed but you hold his wrist, pulling him back to you.

“I'm on the pill”, you bite on your bottom lip, “I’ve been taking it since we started dating”, you prop yourself up, leaning on your elbows as you kiss him, “wanna feel you”, you say, making his breath hitch and his face turns red.

He nods, blinking a few times before leaning over to kiss you once more. His body hovers over yours as he positions himself between your legs, his cock teasing your entrance carefully.

“If it hurts, tell me”, he checks with you for the last time and you nod. He starts pushing his cock inside you, your hands are holding him by the shoulders, digging your nails on him but he doesn't seem to mind.

He closes his eyes briefly, feeling your velvet walls squeezing him so much it's hard to keep going. Minho stops when he hears you sniff, opening his eyes just to find your eyes full of tears and trembling lips.

“Am I hurting you? You should say it if I am”, he scolds you gently, something only he can do.

“The first time is supposed to hurt”, you explain.

“But I can do something to make it hurt less if you tell me what you're feeling”, he kisses your forehead, having all the care to not move inside you.

“You're already making it so much more comfortable”, you smile, kissing his nose.

“Maybe you should be on top, that way you can have the control”, he tells you and you ponder for a minute, nodding.

He pulls out of you, making you whine to the sudden loss, making you feel empty. Minho chuckles, kissing you before laying down to watch you be the one to come on top of him.

You grab his cock, position it in your entrance and push it in. You're much more brave than him, Minho thinks, but also you're the one who knows how much pain you can handle so it's only right for you to have the control — at least on your first time.

You sink down on his cock slowly, making him grab the sheets rather than your hips, too afraid to put too much pressure on you and hurt you. Your face tells him you're in pain, but he knows there's not much he can do about it other than soothe you. So he caresses your back with one hand and your face with the other, sliding his hands to your breasts and kneading at them so you can at least relax a bit.

When you finally have all of him inside of you, you sigh, staying still for a couple of minutes. Minho feels like he can explode at any second, you're squeezing him like crazy but he doesn't want to hurry you so he waits for you to move.

You start grinding on him, rubbing your clit on his pelvic bone and trying to relax the most. After a while the pain is almost not perceptible and you start riding him at a fast pace.

“Fuck, you feel so good”, Minho says, finally grabbing at your hips to pull you down on him.

You can't really form coherent sentences, so the chant of “ah-ah-ah” followed by your kisses on him and you marking his chest is the biggest form of communication you can manage at the moment.

Minho thinks you're the prettiest person he has ever seen, he thought that the moment your eyes lock for the first time and he'll think that until you two are too old to remember what you ate the day before.

When he feels like he's about to cum, he warns you and you nod to let him know you understand but keeps sinking down on him even deeper. He paints your walls white while trembling, his bottom lip stuck between his bunny teeth as he holds your hips with such strength that you know it's gonna bruise. But you don't mind, not at all.

You didn't cum this time, it wasn't as painful as it could be but still painful enough to not edge you.

“I'm sorry you didn't finish”, he pouts as you pull out of him and snuggle yourself in his arms.

“You made me come twice”, you chuckle, making him smile before kissing the top of your head.

“But I wanted to do it a third time”, he huffs.

“We have all the time in the world”, you tell him, resting your chin on his chest as you watch him grin.

“Yes, now you're mine forever”, he giggles to your widened eyes.

“Should I be worried?” You ask and he shakes his head.

“You were already mine from the start, you just didn't know it yet”, he kisses you, pulling away just to stare at you for a few seconds. “I love you”, he confesses and you feel your cheeks burning.

“I love you”, you say, closing the distance between the two of you and kissing him again.

#skz #stray kids #stray kids scenarios #skz imagines #skz x reader #stray kids imagines #skz scenarios #skz smut #lee know x you #lee know fluff #lee know x y/n #lee know x reader #lee know scenarios #lee know smut #skz lee know #lee know skz #lee know imagines #skz x y/n #skz x you #stray kids x you

[buckttommy]

If there would be a tommy begins episode, what would you like to see?

I have waited... my entire life for this moment.

Sorry, I'm about to answer this question in the most Jack way possible. Strap in, I'm about to enter my director era. Okay, let's get to it.

Tommy Begins (Jack's Version)

Opening scene: We see a kid (8yo) playing with Legos on his bedroom floor. His room is very much so a boy's room—there are dinosaurs and dragons and a soccer ball in the corner—but it's very sparse. This family is not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. He's building a car, and beyond his closed bedroom door, you can hear muffled shouting. It's his mom and dad. The boy stops playing with his toys and listens as a door slams downstairs (his mom leaving) and heavy footsteps come up the stairs. He's already scooting backwards when the door opens and his father stands in the doorway. He's visibly drunk, and the camera is angled at Tommy's height so that the man in the doorway looks scary and imposing. (We're really leaning into the visuals here). So his dad looks at him and says, "Tommy, were you eavesdropping?" He wasn't, of course, but it doesn't matter because his dad is already undoing his belt (to beat him, not for anything else!!). Little Tommy continues to scoot backwards as his father comes into the room, and closes the door behind him. Before the door closes and the light from the hallway is shut out, we get a shot of the man's shirt—his father is an auto mechanic and the name Kinard is stitched into his clothing.

Similar to 5x17, where Jonah is introduced as a random little boy before the narrative makes the connection as to who he really is, this is the point where the audience realizes, oh, this isn't just any Tommy, this is our Tommy. And he's about to get his ass beaten.

Oh shit.

And then the 9-1-1 title card appears.

Now, all the begins episodes parallel past with present, so in my head, Tommy is off-work. Buck is moving in that day (this isn't a Buck/Tommy focused episode at all, but Buck is the vehicle for this episode to happen) and Tommy needs to finish going through his stuff to make room for him. He comes across a large box in the back of his closet that's stuffed with all his random keepsakes. He reaches into the box and pulls out a small Rubik's cube on a keychain.

The next scene flashes back to the past. We see Tommy as a teenager, getting into trouble with his idiot friends. They're all high as kites, and one of his friends overdoses on [drug]. He notices—he's the only one that notices, actually—and tells one of his other friends to call 9-1-1. They don't because they're kids, there are drugs involved, and they're stupid, so Tommy calls 9-1-1. He follows the operator's instructions and stays on the line until the paramedics get there. He accompanies his friend to the hospital and someone—a cop who is familiar with him, from having plucked him out of trouble a handful of times—waits with him. He tosses Tommy a Rubik's cube (the same one from the box) so that he can keep his mind occupied. His friend is okay, but the cop is like, "Listen, kid. One day, that's going to be you and one day, it's not going to turn out so well. You've got to straighten up or end up dead." Basically, the whole thing is kind of a wake up call. Before the scene changes, we see Tommy look up and look toward a container of pamphlets on the hospital wall. One of the pamphlets has a soldier on it. In his hand, the Rubik's cube has been completed.

In the present, Tommy continues going through his belongings. This is a dense episode, so we're not going to linger too much on what's happening in the present because it's secondary to what's going on in the past, but Buck and Tommy are texting. Buck is excited and has no idea the turmoil that is going on in his boyfriend's head. Tommy matches his enthusiasm (and it's genuine) but also takes a lot of effort at the moment. Still he smiles a little before he puts the phone down and continues digging through the box. Next, he withdraws his dog tags (and if it isn't obvious by now, the items in the box parallel with the next flashback because these are memories that are actively being triggered while the audience watches).

So, the next scene is obviously back to Tommy's time in the Army. Now, ideally, this would be a ninety-minute episode and I'd have the time to explore all the layers of Tommy's time in the service, but, alas, the boundaries of network television. In my head, most of Tommy's trauma comes from his childhood rather than his time in the Army anyway (which isn't to say it doesn't exist, just that it's not at the forefront of his issues) so we're going to have to gloss over that a bit. When we see him again, he's already in the Army, already well into his career, and the audience can see that he's shaped up and matured quite well. He's well-liked and good at what he does.

He's doing repairs on a helicopter when his CO approaches him and asks where he's going and what he's going to do after he's discharged. Tommy looks across the [hangar] and the camera pans to a a young man. He's in his 20s. Handsome in a boyish way. He's already looking at Tommy, but he looks sad and guilty and hesitant. They meet each others eyes and stare just a bit too long to be casual, and there is a lot of unspoken feeling between the two of them. Their relationship, such as it was during the DADT era, is heavily implied and it does not have a happy ending. Tommy looks back at his CO and says he's headed back home to Los Angeles. As for the rest, he doesn't know what he'll do after he leaves, but he'll figure it out as it comes to him. When he looks up at the guy, he's already gone. It's kind of a metaphor for the way the things he wants always seem to slip away.

In the present, Tommy is still going through his stuff. He unearths an old Academy shirt, so the next scene is his first day at the 118.

Tommy doesn't know it yet, but this is the first day of the rest of his life. Immediately, seeing those walls and doors fills the viewer with a sense of peace. Finally he's where he's supposed to be. He learns on his first day what type of boys club the 118 is under Gerrard. He's visibly uncomfortable (visibly to the viewer, who knows him well enough by now to read his face, but not to the old guard) the first time someone makes a homophobic joke. But he laughs and joins in, aware of but refusing to acknowledge the fact that they are making jokes at his expense. Just like that, he's accepted.

We see him assimilate quickly; the 118 goes on several calls. Not necessarily a montage, but we don't linger on the calls either except for a big fire. He saves Sal DeLuca and is rewarded with lots of accolades and praise. Tommy is one of the "in-crowd" and things are going well. But then Chimney shows up and Hen shows up shortly after. We all know how this plays in canon, so we don't linger too long on the times when Tommy is a dickhead but we do understand, from his perspective, that he has disdain for Hen and Chim—not because he's racist but because their existences threaten to dismantle this bubble of safety he's built around himself at the 118. The goal isn't to make the audience dismiss his complicity, but rather make them understand why he made the choices he made.

Because I am self-indulgent, there is one additional scene right before Tommy leaves for Harbor, where he and Hen are sitting in the locker room. She asks if he's going to miss it. He says he doesn't know, then he pauses and says "Kind of." There are lots of mixed feelings here. He suffocated himself in the closet within these walls and became someone he did not recognize, someone who went along with things rather than fight against the status quo, but he also learned how to breathe and exist a little freely once Gerrard left and Bobby took his place. He got his first taste of what it looks like to be Queer and proud within these walls, and that means something to him.

He looks at Hen and there are so many things he'd like to say to her that he doesn't know how to articulate, mostly because he cannot yet articulate them to himself. He's getting to that point but he's not there yet, so when she asks why he's looking at her like that, he just says "Thank you." "For what?" "For showing me another way." (This, of course, has a double meaning: first, referencing the idea that Hen/Chim showed him another way to be a firefighter, to be a family, to be a human being, and second, referencing the fact that Hen showed him another way to be Queer—showed him that Queerness doesn't have to be filled with self-hatred and pain. It can just... be... and people can either accept it, or they don't). Hen gets the sense that there's a lot he's not saying, a lot under the surface that she's not privy to, but she says "You're welcome."

The next scene is Tommy at Harbor, and the moment he gets there, the viewer can see a weight slip off his shoulders. He's back where he belongs—back with the mechanics, back with the big toys that make him feel at ease. It's a direct parallel to Buck's first meeting with the 118 (not for any Buck/Tommy purposes, just because I love a good narrative parallel) where Bobby pranks him. But Tommy smiles when they bust his balls, and settles into himself, and the viewer can see that he's okay. Things might not be perfect—he might not be perfect—but he's on the right track to being the person the audience will know and love in a few short seasons.

Back in the present, Tommy is pulled out of his walk down memory lane by the sound of his front door opening. Buck is standing on the other side with an overly large box in his hands. Tommy helps him carry it in, and offers to get the rest of his stuff from the Jeep, but Buck waves him off. He studies his face for a long moment, and asks if Tommy is alright. Tommy opens his mouth to answer and discovers, almost shockingly, that he is. He is alright. Maybe he wasn't a couple minutes ago. Maybe those items from the past dredged up memories that were best left forgotten. But he's here now, in this moment with his boyfriend, and he's fine. He's survived a lot. He's grown a lot. He's happy. So he smiles and he says yes, yes he's alright, and he kisses Buck, who also smiles, deeply. The doors close, implying sexytimes and Tommy closing the door on all the chapters of his life that have led him to this place, where he's now ready to embrace and walk into his future.

aaaaand SCENE :) the end.

#I had WAY too much fun with this #Oh my god. #TIM GET ME IN THE WRITING ROOM QUICK!!!!!!!!!! #tommy kinard #tv: 911 #bucktommy #(but only slightly)

[kaisers-house-of-desires]

Can I request a Gojo x male reader that owns a cafe. Reader is having an event for his cafe where if someone gets a special item in their dessert (like idk a cherry or something) he would make them a custom dessert. Gojo, who had won the competition, requested to have Olive as his dessert. (Olive and Gojo do know each other, so it's nit like Gojo is a stranger requesting this lol. If you choose this request then thank you <3

Consider it done~ And for the sake of not naming the reader, I won't be using the name Olive but the relationship can remain.

Title: Sweet Tooth

Characters: Gojo x m!reader

Contains: heated/sensual make out

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Full request below the cut

All characters are 18+

MINORS, FEM ALIGNED, AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS DNI

Reblogs > likes

"Congratulations! You won a custom dessert!"

Behind shaded lenses, Gojo blinked in reaction to the announcement. "Hah?"

You handed him a specialized card in both hands, a small one made of easy to punch paper. "A custom dessert! It's an event I'm holding. People who order a specific item from the menu get a special dessert made just for them, free of charge! With limitations of course."

As a café owner, you liked to hold these little events on occasion, especially if you ended up with more ingredients than you sold. It was a convenient way to get rid of them without having to throw them away and wasting them. For Gojo to win one felt like a thrill, as he didn't often stop by as of late thanks to his teaching position. He luckily had some time during the day to come by for a sweet treat, especially since he promised he would at some point.

Taking the card, Gojo scanned the text.

You've won one (1) free custom dessert*! Present this card at purchase to redeem. *Limitations apply. Good for one item up to ¥800

His drink and to-go box were already on the counter as he gazed back at you. With not a lot of time left in his break, he gave you a charming smile, picking up his items after sliding the card in his pocket. "I'll definitely stop by before you close to redeem this, maybe get some extra things while I'm here."

You two gave each other a wave before Gojo stepped out.

---

As closing time approached, you tried keeping the oven on as long as you could, keeping all the necessary ingredients nearby for whenever Gojo entered the shop, but despite your efforts and hopeful waiting, closing hour came, and you begrudgingly turned the heat off while putting the ingredients into storage.

You were upset, yeah, but not exactly at Gojo. It wasn't the first time his job made him stay out, and it wasn't the first time he didn't show up when he said he would. You didn't want to think about all the plans that fell through on top of this, so after locking the front doors, you set yourself to nearly deep clean the café to distract yourself.

You were going to start with the back. Since that area was out of customer sight, you never really cleaned it as well as you should, but at least it was always within code. You had put your apron up on the rack when a knock rattled the backdoor in the room, nearly causing you to jump out of your skin.

You don't recall ordering any new items, as this is where deliveries would be handled commonly, but you could have simply forgotten. That being said, you opened the door, revealing a towering male with familiar white hair and cloth-shielded eyes.

"Yo, am I too late?" His voice was all too casual for his delay in presence.

Disappointment had gave way to anger, and you turned around, allowing Gojo to enter the shop, gazing around the new environment for a customer.

"You have some nerve..."

"What? I came by! I said I would!"

"You said you'd come by before closing!" Built up frustration bubbled to the surface as you started gathering your cleaning items, haphazardly pacing back and forth to grab the items that were strewn about. "Like how you said you'd come over for drinks last week, or how you wanted to catch a movie the time before that."

Gojo let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, I know I messed up. Things have been...crazy with the school for awhile."

"Then you should just focus on that instead of giving me hope." Water splashed from the soap filled bucket you made while talking, having slammed a rag in it after. There was an unsettling silence before Gojo spoke.

"But I'm here, right? After closing, sure. But I'm not bailing completely." He revealed the card from his pocket, still in decent condition despite the activity he typically does. "I still wanna cash in, if that's okay."

You stalled your movements, glancing at him with the revealed card before your gaze went back to the bucket, letting out a sigh.

"I...Yeah." There wasn't any point in being angry right now. You had to admit it was nice of him to come back when he said he would despite being late. He could have bailed out or gotten caught up with work like he usually did but he actually came back this time. "I'm sorry. I'm...really sorry." You straightened up, taking a nice deep breath to ground yourself for the moment. "I haven't started cleaning yet, so what would you like? I can get the stuff back out, but remember it's a ¥800 limit."

"If it's custom, what determines the price?" As Gojo spoke, he stepped over to you, rereading the text to make sure he read it all correctly.

You replied while tying your apron back on. "Size, mainly. You can take a menu item and change it how you want, and I can let you know if that will be within your range."

"Can I go off menu?"

"Well...I don't see why not, but you'd really have to know what you'd--" Your words cut off once you turned back around to face Gojo after your apron was on. He was so close to you, you could almost feel the heat radiating off of him, which contradicted the chilling feeling from the icy blue stare that now graced you. "--w-want."

"So as long as I really know what I want, I can have it, yeah?" His voice dropped to a husky tone as he leaned close, your back starting to press into the wall.

"S-Satoru--"

"Well, can I redeem the cute shop owner~?"

When his cold hand touched your heated cheek, your heart picked up in pace. It pounded in your ears, nearly drowning out all sound. You had no idea Gojo felt this way, but maybe you were just oblivious to past actions.

"I-I...um...I-I'm not exactly a dessert..."

"Are you sure? Because my sweet tooth kicks in whenever I see you~ Maybe I could have a sample first?"

Before you could respond, Gojo's lips found yours, and he was quick to help himself past them, humming from the sweet taste that coated your mouth from sampling your creations throughout the day. Soft groans left the two of you, and you found yourself gripping at Gojo's uniform sleeves, not in protest, but to keep your mind steady. Luckily for your sake, he didn't keep the kiss long, pulling away once notice you were shaking to get air. As you panted lightly, he gave you a playful smirk, licking his lips with a satisfied hum.

"Well after a sample like that, how could I not have more~?"

You didn't need to wait for him to make a move. This time, you urged in, connecting your lips once more with his. His body pressed flush against you, the silence in the air replaced with sensually charged sounds. You gripped at his clothes as his hands raked through your hair, tongues dancing with one another as you held each other close. You were emotionally charged; anger, desire, and excitement all mixing within yourself like a lumpy batter. You didn't exactly know what to feel with him, but desire seemed to be the strongest ingredient.

This sudden makeout seemed to last awhile to you, feeling like tens of minutes went by before you two finally disconnected, gazing into each other's glazed eyes while your chests heaved for air.

"M-My house later," you breathed. "Y-You better not be late this time."

"Trust me," Gojo exhaled in response. "I wouldn't miss that for anything...~"

#kaisers house of desires #x reader #x male reader #x male y/n #jujustsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu gojo #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #jjk x reader #jjk gojo #gojo satoru #saturo gojo #gojou satoru x reader #gojo x reader #x y/n #jujutsu kaisen gojo #jujutsu kaisen satoru #jujutsu satoru #satorugojo #jjk satoru

[thekeeperof-thefandoms]

Hi! I would love to request some cuddling scenarios with Lucifer, Alastor, and Vox!

SOFT MOMENT OF NON SEXUAL INTIMACY?! IN THIS HOUSE?! Yes, please!

It's implied romantic but could be queer platonic or a queer/nontraditional couple.

Lucifer

This man wants snuggles. Any way he can get them any time, he isn't required to not be physically attached to you. He really struggles with derealization/depersonalization. His depression gets bad, he isolates, and time has pretty much lost meaning to him after being around so long, so he just kinda, wastes away into sadness. It's how he and Charlie fell apart the first time, and he really doesn't want it to happen again.

Having you around to just talk to, hold hands with, sit on your lap, or you in his, it helps. It's like a reminder that he's still alive and someone wants to be around him. Someone wants to spend time with him. That you care. It also motivates him to stay in contact with Charlie instead of convincing himself she's better without him.

He still loves Lillith, regrets they aren't together, but he doesn't blame her for leaving. He's more upset with how it affects Charlie. So he makes extra effort to spend time with you, to acknowledge how important you are to him. He's so paranoid about ruining this relationship. This man has centuries of being told everything is his fault, everything wrong with the world, and is forced to face that supposed truth every day he rules Hell.

His favorite thing is just pulling you on top of him like a weighted blanket, wrapping his wings around the both of you, and laying in a dark, warm, cocoon. He'll take deep breaths, pet your hair, and just let himself finally relax. The first few times you'd stayed quiet, assuming that's what he wanted, but it just makes it easier for him to disassociate.

Now you talk to him, softly, about your day, ask about his. You slowly get him to open up about his favorite things, good memories he has of Lillith, baby Charlie, the sins, times before the Fall. It's a long process to get him to talk about it. Please be patient and gentle with him. He likes when you play with his fingers while he talks, just holding his hand and twisting and turning it, moving his rings around, just don't touch his wedding ring please, maybe you even manage to do his nails in this position.

His second favorite is when you help preen his feathers, gently massaging his wing joints, polishing each feather with the oil from his glands, using your thumbs to work out knots in the muscles around the base. It always turns into a full back massage that leaves him purring, making happy sighing sounds and little moans. He usually falls asleep like this. Don't worry though, once he wakes up, he's definitely returning the favor. He does head massages too! He prepares a little personal spa day for you.

He isn't really looking for anything more intimate when he's in one of sadder moods and is cuddling with you to feel better, he wouldn’t turn it down, he's too afraid you'd be upset, but he really just wants to be held or to hold someone. It's the little things that really make you special to him, and he cherishes every second you guys are together.

Alastor

We all know Alastor isn't a fan of being touched unless he initiates it. There are very few exceptions to this, so you have to be pretty close to him to even get the option to cuddle him.

You'll have to start slow, like holding his hand. A lot of people think he's the type to not want to do too much PDA, but like, look at how he is with Rosie and Mimzy in front of everyone. He doesn't care. Not for small things like hand holding. This eventually leads to him putting his arm around your waist as you're walking together, or around your shoulders if you're sitting next to each other so you can lean on his shoulder.

Now more intimate gestures, like cheek kisses, forehead kisses, petting his ears, those are private. He will resist at first, preferring to lavish you with attention, but be stubborn, match his energy, especially the witty banter, and eventually you'll wear him down.

It's canon that Alastor's hardly ever sleeps, so I imagine if you're a motherly type, (regardless of gender), or someone he genuinely trusts (because its not about if he's safe. He's the Radio Demon, very few sinners are a threat to him, so being a little vulnerable with you is safe no matter the level of trust) he's going to pass out.

You're in his room (or yours, but he prefers his) and he agreed to let you pet his ears. You settle on the bed, his head on your chest or lap, and he closes his eyes, soft jazz music playing from some unseen source, and maybe you're watching something on your phone, (he allows it only if it's something he can enjoy as well, but he usually winds up listening more than watching because screens hurt his eyes after awhile) more likely you're listening to a podcast, Alastor likes listening to true crime with you.

Your fingers gently run through his hair at first. You tease him about the bob sometimes, but understand that he's prone to pulling his hair out otherwise. Eventually you notice the music has stopped and Alastor's fast asleep, the small on his face is so small it nearly doesn't exist, and his breathing is slow and even. His ears twitch when you stop petting them, and he stirs a bit, so you quickly resume playing with them and he falls back asleep.

(His tail is sensitive too, if you ever wanna fluster him, just run a finger down his spine to that cute little tail and give it a gentle tug.)

Alastor is also prone to play biting, so if you're an excited nibbler who gives noms, expect your cuddles to end up with a few bite marks.

Vox

It's really hard for him to sit still long, so if he's working late and you want to spend time with him, just crawl yourself into his lap and get comfy. He'll grumble and complain about the distraction, but it's all for show. He'll put his arm around your waist and trace your hipbones with his thumb, or play with your hair, run his fingers up and down your back, just small fidgety things.

He understands his head is inconvenient for snuggles, and he may not be the most comfortable. (I headcanon his body is built like the Detroit Become Human bots, with like silicone padding to appear/feel like skin, but it's hard plastic and metal and wires underneath with biomechanical parts inside.)

He is warm, though, and has the constant hum of his internal fans and electricity, so he's great for sensory snuggles. He's great for when you're sore or have migraines (surprisingly, but he can turn his brightness down at will). He likes to do more traditional forms of PDA.

He walks with his hand on your lower back. (He and Alastor both absolutely do the subconscious walk with their partners on the inside and them closest to the streets or alleyways. Lucifer would, but he probably isn't even aware it's a thing.)

You're cooking/baking/doing anything with your back to him, he puts his hands on your waist and leans against you. He's 7ft tall so he probably won't lean his entire body on you, but enough to feel close to you.

His favorite snuggles are disgustingly domestic. Like, his all time favorite, is when you're both sitting together on a couch, enjoying a movie or show, or maybe you're reading or on your phone or gaming, and he's working, just anytime you're occupying the couch together and existing, he'll pull your feet into his lap and massage them.

It's not like, a fetish thing, he just thinks it's sweet. A nice gesture to show how much he appreciates what you do, how hard you work. He'll massage your ankles and calfs too. He's also prone to trying to play with your hair and massage your scalp when you're laying on his chest at night, but his claws get tangled easily. Settles for rubbing your shoulders/back.

He likes when you rub his back and neck too. The man spends way too much time hunched over his desk at work. His back aches from doing the gremlin hunch over his desk to standing ramrod straight in front of cameras, sitting properly and confidently, stiff as a fucking board. You once teased him about how he could just use one of his cardboard cutouts as a stand-in, and no one would know.

Other times, he likes to lay on you. The first few times he sprawled across your lap seeking affection and reassurance for his fragile ego, you'd been so nervous to crack his screen. But now you're more used to it and will even playfully try and poke it/tap it. Between you and Valentino, Vox has had to rule out ever getting a touch screen for a head, because neither of you will stop fucking with it. It does make him laugh, though, adorable little giggles he'd rather die than let the general public hear. It usually turns into a playful wrestling match and aggressive cuddles with a side of petty static electricity from Vox.

#hazbin hotel vox #hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin hotel lucifer #vox x reader #alastor x reader #lucifer x reader

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

On the language debate, I personally headcanon that the main language spoken at NRC is a common one. (?) (Like how English is the business language, or like how generally Native Americans had a common language that they spoke when trading with other tribes.) And Crowley or the Mirror used magic so that You was temporary fluent in that language.

After the ceremony, Yuu has to learn the common language and picks it up really fast (as one would in such a situation). Therefore, Yuu can still speak it when away from NRC.

(I also headcanon English as an ancient language akin to Latin, because I heard that Arabic was canonically an ancient language.)

[Referencing this post!]

I’d buy that everyone at NRC speaks the common language to some level of proficiency; it’s like how international students typically need to speak the language of whichever country they hope to study in and need to prove their fluency in an exam beforehand. As I said in the original post, the light novel does mention a translation spell over the school, so maybe that’s part of the “magic” that helps Yuu to understand what the others are saying.

Now, it’s theoretically possible for Yuu to learn the common language of Twisted Wonderland in a year, but I don’t think immersion alone would cut it (especially since the main story is only up to like 2/4 to 3/4 of a year so far) . They’d probably have to put in significant effort outside of everyday conversations to pick up its rules (because remember that language isn’t just vocabulary but also grammar, syntax, and social conventions). Yuu would also need consistent feedback from people since that’s how one usually “fixes” their incorrect language use. It’s similar to how adults would correct a child learning their first language; ie a kid says “wadur” instead of “water”.)

One site I looked at suggested that, depending on the language categorization (I, II, III, of IV), it can take 24-92 weeks’ worth of time to become an “advanced” speaker. Realistically, just getting to the basic conversational level could be hundreds or thousands (700-2500+) of hours on its own—and Yuu has to do this on their own time between homework, going to classes, and managing all the issues that Crowley doesn’t 💀 To me, that doesn’t sound like a lot of free time. Counterpoint to my own point though, we also have to consider that Yuu is... well, technically Yuu can be any age you want, but most Yuus are implied or portrayed to be 16-18. The critical window for language acquisition is theorized to be anywhere from the first three years of life up to as late as 17-18 years. After this critical window, the ability for language development tapers off. So, thinking about that, Yuu's brain could still be very pliable and able to absorb new language (though they'd have to work quite intensely to pack in as much as they can before this ability starts to decline).

Something that I feel would be difficult for Yuu is that the characters often use slang (Cater, Floyd, Idia, etc.) and/or uncommon words (like Vil’s “pulchritude”). The former may not follow the standardized rules of a language or may be idioms (other non-literal meanings for common words), which could make it hard for a non-native speaker to understand. The latter would not be used that often, so Yuu would be forced to guesstimate what the word means. I’d imagine this would make fluency challenging, because as immersed as Yuu is in Twisted Wonderland, less frequently used words are harder to grasp.

Maybe Crowley cast a translation spell ON Yuu so that they can still converse with people in the common tongue whenever they leave NRC? Or, since the events basically occur in an AU, more than a year has passed so it has allowed Yuu more time to absorb the language. Language in TWST and how it works… It’s really interesting to think about!

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #Yuu #Dire Crowley #twst light novel #twisted wonderland light novel #notes from the writing raven #twst theory #twst theories #twisted wonderland theory #twisted wonderland theories

[foressfaction]

Since Toby’s birthday is right around the corner I figured I shall drop some birthday headcanons and some other side stuff.

I base these off of my feelings towards birthdays and celebrations like so.

I feel like he wouldn’t care much about his birthday, he’s the type that would most likely give YOU a gift on his own birthday. He’s not big on receiving but would take anything else into consideration before himself. He feels like he’s not allowed to have fun or enjoy himself even just for one day.

When younger he’d just request to be left alone for the day to stay in his room and occasionally have Lyra show up for company. Maybe even her singing happy birthday to him every now and then. He’s not too big on sweets either so there was a time where she brought him a muffin with a candle on top, knowing frosting makes his stomach upset.

He would absolutely hate big parties and never really got one anyways. Unless it was people he was close with and if he didn’t know about it, he’d avoid everything about a party. He would just maybe want a friend or partner to keep him company for the day, that’s all he would ask for.

I also like to think that his iconic hoodie was a gift from his mom and Lyra due to not owning many jackets in the first place and the fact he would chew the hoodie strings until they were quite literally so shedded that they weren’t even functional anymore. So they’d find him one that still looked nice but also lacked those strings. (He was banned from hoodie strings…his mom would take them out of hoodies he had) eventually though he chewed the sleeves up on the gifted one but he loved it too much to stop wearing it so I like to think Lyra sewed on new sleeves from one of his other hoodies (where the striped pattern comes from) as the one they got him was just the base color and the blue hood. But ever since then he hasn’t chewed on them, knowing she put effort into sewing them on.

It’s a sturdy material and warm so he did and still does wear it a lot though he has other clothes too.

#creepypasta #slenderverse #foressfaction #ticci toby #toby rogers #ticci toby headcanons #headcanons #creepypasta headcanon

[butch-reidentified]

if you think agp is a thing(and presumably exclusive to trans women) what do you think of cis women claiming to masturbate in front of mirrors and CIA women who report being aroused by breastfeeding?

literally every single answer to these questions is available on my blog. I'm tired of writing the same posts over and over and over. if you can't find sufficient answers scrolling my blog, searching key words on my blog (or on google citing my blog, which yields better results oftentimes), going through the links in my pinned, or checking the tags referenced in my pinned, then I'd say if it's reeeeally important to you to get answers, your best bet will be to sit tight and occasionally check for updates to my Pinned as I am gradually adding more and more links detailing my views, and/or skim my blog from time to time - it's pretty much guaranteed to cycle through again within a month at most 🤷

I was actually gonna put a partial (that is to say, just not my usual thorough, detailed, and nuanced) answer at the beginning, but honestly I'm getting VERY tired of anonymous strangers who most likely just stumbled across my blog for the first time today thinking they're entitled to a personalized thinkpiece from me when almost every time I get an ask like this (which are distinctly different from good faith curiosities, which I'm more than happy to answer), I've already posted my answer, I've already written about the subject in depth on my blog. so I'll put my answer below instead so you have to read all of the above first, so you at least sort of vaguely kinda earn some response by putting in a miniscule fraction of the work/time I've put into both reading/informing myself about all sorts of different opinions, ideologies, experiences, perspectives, and views (rather than just demanding opinions from strangers on anon, lmao) and writing countless posts (& that's just on here, ignoring the offline side which is where I'm wayyy more active), which are almost always VERY long and detailed and proofread and edited and polished several times over.

btw, kind of a side note -- I have NEVER sent a single anon in my life, and I have NEVER, anonymously or not, demanded someone give me a personalized just-for-me explanation of their opinions (or any at all). the reason I call this entitlement is because you (most likely) aren't asking out of genuine curiosity or good faith. you (most likely) are asking because you dislike what you think my views are (you are most likely misinformed and think I believe things I do not) and you (most likely) think this is some kind of gotcha rather than the same ignorant, unoriginal, boring ass points that I've read countless times as far back as when I was a transactivist and trans-identifying myself. they've been debunked/responded to by a LOT of other women, too, and I'm very confident you could easily find at least one such response. I'm not holding you to a standard I don't also hold myself to; in fact, that I'm going to give you any degree of actual answer at all is demonstrative of my holding myself to a HIGHER standard. because again, nothing I'm about to say on this topic is just now in this post being born into the universe as a novel thought. or even a novel tumblr post; like I said, you could find the radfem answers to this ask yourself with just a tiny bit of effort - and while radfems are far from a monolith, and I am a frequent vocal dissenter on a variety of radblr hot topics, this isn't even really a matter of opinion. read on to find out why.

Part A - Not answering the questions here per se, but a clarification of terminology that may help you (any reader, not necessarily anon) see my perspective:

The word "cis" has different definitions. It used to mean someone who is not trans, whereas trans referred to sex-dysphoric transitioners, a demographic who now often prefer terms like transsexual or transsex or simply "sex-dysphoric" BECAUSE they don't agree with gender identity ideology (GII) and object to the way GII has been actively hostile to them and erased transsexuality (and thus their identities, needs, beliefs, and experiences as well), similarly to the ways in which GII engages with pretty much everything that isn't complete and total blind allegiance. These include but are far from limited to:

1. Obfuscating people's (especially children's/young adults' - as they are the primary consumers of most GII content by far) understanding of biology, particularly as it pertains to the sexes of human beings and sexual dimorphism, and inserting "gender identity" as a direct (but importantly not synonymous or remotely parallel) replacement for the material and biological reality of sex. Sex, absent patriarchy and the gender construct, is simply a neutral and factual categorization of human beings: sex categorizes human body types according to the two developmental pathways that evolved solely for the purpose of producing one gamete type or the other to enable perpetuation of the species via sexual reproduction. What this statement does NOT imply to anyone reading it with even an ounce of integrity/intellectual honesty: "women are defined by having babies," "infertile/childfree adult female humans are not women," "humans with anomalous sexual development of any variety are not male or female, but rather a 3rd sex or even proof sex is a spectrum," or anything along these lines; I refer to these arguments as intellectually dishonest because they are originally intentional (disinformation -> misinformation) misinterpretations & serve to moralize, dogmatize, and essentially theologize facts of nature.

This obfuscation of biology is committed via a variety of tactics that frequently include outright gaslighting; "gender and sex are different" turned into "sex is actually a spectrum" (it's not - read on to learn why not!) and then outright science denial while gaslighting others as being the unscientific, uneducated, "3rd grade understanding of biology" ones (again, this is simply factually not true*).

*Feel free to request to see a peer-reviewed neuroscience journal publication bearing my name and/or my thesis (original research regarding the overlapping genetics + epigenetics of norepinephrine dysregulation in both dysautonomia and attention deficit disorders) if you are skeptical of my credentials regarding biology. alternatively, feel free to cite your sources and I will provide a free-of-charge peer review service :)

2. Building from #1, the erasure of patriarchal sex-based oppression of women & girls (by definition: human beings of the female sex, adults & children respectively) via aforementioned tactics obfuscating sex biology & human biology in favor of an innate, internal "gender identity" which is extremely poorly defined with the individual "gender identities" themselves left utterly non-delineated. Gender identity ideology is to be taken entirely on pure faith, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence to support gender identity as a universal component of human beings/universal human experience. In fact, the existence of absolutely any nonzero quantity of human beings who do not experience gender identity firmly disproves it as universal human experience - and we know not all humans have a gender identity. However, every human being experiences sexual development, be it typical, disordered (DSDs, congenital infertility, etc), or otherwise anomalous; the vast majority experience typical sexual development, and one's sex is entirely clear in the vast majority of atypical cases as well. Female humans are oppressed on the basis of our biological reproductive capabilities; patriarchy desires control over the female sex as a direct product of its desire to control reproduction. Patriarchy created the gender construct to instill and enforce a caste system between the sexes upholding the patriarchal dogma of male supremacy and female inferiority. Similarly, patriarchy created father-gods in order to make the creation of life a male act. Erasure of sex in favor of the gender construct serves male supremacy and cannot ever be anti-patriarchal or feminist. Evidence of sex based oppression abounds offline (frankly, you need look no further than menstruation stigma in all its forms up to and including menstrual huts, but there is infinitely more evidence) and right here on my blog as well; I even have some posts tagged to serve as proof of sex based oppression.

3. Erasing homosexuality via working toward erasure of exclusive same-sex attraction (this is particularly targeted at lesbians, and this is VERY well documented. I have many examples of this in my TRA Receipts tag, including a particularly excellent masterpost containing, in total iirc THOUSANDS of screenshots), once again replacing sex with "gender identity" as if one's orientation being defined as attraction to another human's invisible, internal, and highly individual "gender identity," which not all humans even purport to have in the first place, could possibly make any sense. This is uniquely absurd.

As stated in the 2nd link in #1 on my Pinned, I object to the usage of "cis" for non-trans-identifying people. Why? At the core of it, because the most commonplace definition of "cis"/'cisgender" that I see at this point in time is "having a gender identity that aligns with what was assigned at birth." As stated above, gender identity is not universal, rendering "cisgender" equally as personal and internal of an identity label as "transgender" - and these are not a pure dichotomy by any means. Radical feminism does not grant any degree of objective factual legitimacy to the gender construct; thus, no radical feminist is or can be, by definition, transgender or cisgender (this does not carry over to whether or not radfems can have dysphoria or even be medically transitioned). Radfems are not the only humans without "gender identities," and it is dishonest and disrespectful to force the term/label onto everyone else according to an ideology we/they may not share.

Part B - The Long-Awaited Answer! [I changed my mind since this ended up significantly longer than initially planned so here ya go]

Autogynephilia was coined as a term with a specific definition. That definition is still the same one in use today. That definition explicitly states that only males can qualify. That definition is: "a paraphilia that describes when a man experiences sexual arousal from the thought of himself as a woman" per Google, and "a male's propensity to be sexually aroused by the thought of himself as a female" per Blanchard's original stated intention for the term he created. Wikipedia goes on to add "intending for the term to refer to 'the full gamut of erotically arousing cross-gender behaviors and fantasies.'"

I have many criticisms of Blanchard himself and of the quality of his research methodologies. However, the evidence for the existence of the paraphilia itself is abundant and undeniable given that many males outright refer to themselves as autogynephiles and many have openly discussed their experiences as someone with this paraphilia. What I do not believe is that all trans-identifying males are AGPs, that there is proven legitimacy to the HSTS/AGP dichotomy (even Blanchard himself said not all OSA trans-identifying males are AGPs - just a whole lot of them), or that non-trans-identifying males can't be AGPs - actually I think it's likely that most AGPs don't identify as transgender.

The core of the paraphilia, the source of the arousal, is a product of the patriarchal sex caste system; autogynephiles are aroused by the idea of themselves as women - as they themselves have stated - because of the sexual objectification of femaleness and/or because they're aroused by degradation and humiliation (as is blatantly obviously on brilliant display in the existence of and obsession with "forced feminization" and similar female-degrading sexual concepts), and the AGP male views femaleness and the gender that patriarchy has forcibly ascribed to femaleness ("femininity") as inferior and thus sees his engagement in performing femininity as degrading - which in turn sexually excites him.

One reason some women find themselves arousing in their own bodies and natural non-performative states is the same as when men find themselves arousing in their own bodies and natural non-performative states: self-confidence increases libido and associations can be made between A and B. Where women and men inevitably differ, however, is about the arousal surrounding performing femininity and/or sexual self-objectification. It is not at all unreasonable to speculate that some women can be turned on when they "feel hot" for a reason other than just self-confidence; for one speculative example, it's possible that some women may see herself in the mirror all dressed up in hypersexualized clothing and feel that they've succeeded in mirroring the pornified images and sexually-appealing-to-males beauty expectations. Ultimately, this is self-objectification. It's patriarchy and the male gaze that have forced these associations onto all of society, and hypersexual associations have a tendency of causing sexual arousal in people (duh).

Oh and I've never heard of women being aroused by breastfeeding, only complaining about it being painful asf, but like. Nipples are among the most common and well-documented non-genital erogenous areas so? This seems terribly unlikely to be a common phenomenon, but utterly irrelevant to the existence of autogynephilia regardless lol. If this is a thing, like I said I doubt it's commonplace at all, but even just hypothetically, I'd say it would distinctly fall in line with everything else I say in this answer. Patriarchy and its pornographers have indeed sexualized breastfeeding - there are a concerning number of men who ask their partners NOT TO BREASTFEED their babies - his own children! - because it makes him JEALOUS and even resent the baby. I'm dead serious you can look this up, it happens. So... read on for elaboration.

I neither know nor care precisely what you're referencing in this ask, because the answer remains the same: autogynephilia by definition can only affect males, and males who have a fetish for the idea of themselves as female, be that through imagining themselves Fucked (anatomically female, specifically in a sexually objectified - aka Fucked - manner; the anatomical/biological form of autogynephilia fetishizes the male subject imagining himself as the female Fucked object of pornography) or Feminine (as discussed above) fundamentally are not and cannot be the same as women who are turned on by feeling like they look sexually appealing or by their own natural anatomy or biological functions (which have been violently hypersexualized by patriarchy). This is a form of internalized misogyny; when men do it, it's just misogyny. These are not the same.

#mine #ask #anon ask #anon #radblr #long post

[luciuscaelus]

I wanna share my theory of No Longer You with y’all. (This would be part one. And the post may get a bit long I’m sorry)

First, let me ask you a question (which has been asked a lot): had Teiresias really helped Odysseus?

I want to make a little analysis before I put my conclusion here.

From Odysseus’s POV, every word that Teiresias had just said is against him: Teiresias said, “There is a world where I help you get home, but that’s not a world I know.” Then Odysseus replied with a “What™️?” (Ok, think about it: Circe asked him to there might be a way to evade him, there might be a way to get home.” And she instructed him to visit Teiresias, and now Teiresias told him that he’s not gonna help him? Odysseus was having a hard time accepting the truth.) Then Teiresias related to him all these things he saw, (and remember we’re look at it in Odysseus’s POV), and it’s bombarding Odysseus so hard, that it goes like this: “your romance is past; your men is sacrificed (it’s singular nevertheless); you’ve been (or will be) betrayed time and again; your brother is dead (Polites); you’re on the brink of death; and then you died; a man gets to make it home alive, but it’s not you.”

This is why Odysseus replied, “This can’t be. We’ve suffered and sailed through the toughest of hells and you tell us our efforts for nothing?” (It’s like, “Impossible. You’re telling me that everything we’ve done is meaningless cuz in the end it’s only a man who’ll make it home, and he’s not even me???”)

Teiresias continued, (the following is still in Odysseus’s POV) “Your palace is covered in red—your royalties are all dead; the dead people are men who believe you’re long dead—they’re dear to you, and now they’re all dead; your wife is with someone who’s haunting her, someone who has killed all of those people—he’s gonna take possession of her.”

Odysseus can no longer suppress his anger, “WHOOOOOO?!”

And Teiresias repeated his words again, making Odysseus think that everything is ruined. This is why Odysseus is spiraling, cuz he’s having such a turmoil, and an urge to avoid this kind of future at all costs, with whatever it takes.

But we see things a bit differently.

We see the song of past romance as their long waited reunion; we see the sacrifice of man as a price for him to get home; we see the betrayal as the weakness of his crew that led them to their own destruction; we see him dying but know that he’s not going to die on his way home; we see a man who gets home alive but no longer him cuz he has changed (and a little reference to his disguise). We knows that Teiresias was telling the truth, but from another perspective. We know that it’s him who’ll slaughter the suitors and leave his palace covered in red; we know that the men who had long believed he’s dead are those suitors who woo the presumed “widow” of Odysseus, and we know that the man who is haunting, the man with a trail of bodies, is none other than Odysseus himself.

We know Teiresias was trying to warn Odysseus about his changes, and Odysseus misunderstood him.

Odysseus tried to prevent everything from happening, as the meme goes, “Someone is going to do the killing. I’ll ensure that someone is me.”

So Odysseus continued to change, precisely one song later, and he finally became the one in Teiresias’s vision.

And everything did happen according to Teiresias’s visions.

He tried to avoid the inevitable, but it’s he who makes the inevitable happen, though not precisely as he thought it would be.

It’s nothing someone else who would do the killing. It’s himself all along. Everything is directed towards himself.

Yep, see the pattern here? It’s a topic so well known that no one could’ve missed it in their mythological reading. It’s about fate.

As in one of the most famous literature works, Oedipus Rex.

A work which also involves the appearance of a man, who was none other than Teiresias.

You see, Teiresias was trying to warn Oedipus that he would find the criminal in himself, that he himself was the murderer he’s looking for. Oedipus tried to denied the words, tried to inflict all these curses upon the murderer he sought, but in the end, it was all directed towards himself.

And as audience (readers to be exact), we know that Teiresias was telling the truth for the entire time.

The Teiresias in Epic the musical isn’t the Teiresias in the Odyssey. It’s the Teiresias in Oedipus Rex.

Now, let’s answer the question. Had Teiresias truly helped Odysseus? Yes, from a certain point of view. Teiresias was the catalyst that makes Odysseus reconsider his own actions, and eventually become the “monster”, to fulfill the prophecy of “no longer you”. As in Oedipus Rex, Teiresias’s hints had led Oedipus to a research on his own past, and eventually discovered that he was the murderer, who had fulfilled the prophecy of the family of Laius.

This parallel is, in my opinion, what makes Epic!Teiresias even more fantastic than Odyssey!Teiresias.

#This will be my first post about Teiresias but it won’t be the last #tagamemnon #epic the musical #odysseus #the odyssey #greek mythology #tiresias #epic the underworld saga #jorge rivera herrans #Good job Jorge on everything #oedipus #oedipus rex

[prince-liest]

Been thinking about Vox (as one often does) and his very obvious type, especially in 666 and now the new fic. At some point you have to assume that Vox ENJOYS having to talk down psychopathic egomaniacs. I think part of that is that he must be good at it, either through practice or a natural talent or else he wouldn't like SURVIVE these relationships.

But I also think a large part of it is that he gets to pretend he's the only sane person in the room for a bit, and there's a bonus of the really fun kick that The Overlord Vox can get these fucking weirdos to do what he says, WITHOUT hypnotism, thank you very much. I dunno something like a fun mix of his control freak nature and what I'm sure is a fuckton of pride that only HE can get these fantastic lays to keep coming back to HIM (nevermind that no one else in their right mind would be putting this much effort into a relationship with Val or Alastor).

Anyway, you have me thinking about Vox all the fucking time now. I blame you for making him one of my favorite characters when at first I didn't think much of him. The charismatic loser that he is

I majorly agree with you, hahaha. I think Vox is an egomaniac with control issues who's on a massive power trip whenever he exercises his manipulation muscles on Valentino (and Alastor, in my fics). He gets away with seeming fairly pathetic at times when I write him, because I enjoy writing radiostatic and, to quote a comment, Vox's common sense flees any room Alastor enters...but that doesn't mean that he's not still a manipulative, paternalistic asshole as well as an overlord and the CEO of VoxTek. Even when he's down bad, he still thinks he's smarter, more clever, and more capable than anyone that he interacts with, in one way or another. Liking a person doesn't mean that he respects them - at least not always, or not in all capacities.

I actually think that every single member of the Vees spends a significant portion of their time thinking they're the only sane person in the room, hahaha. But Vox is particularly bad about it because he's put himself into a leadership position even among the trio, and a lot of his modus operandi is exercising control over every single person underneath him, including his friends.

#ask #personal #rexlover180 #hazbin hotel #vox #my writing #I'm SO incredibly glad I've contributed to Vox becoming one of your faves hahaha #he actually wasn't one of mine when I started writing 666 #I was an Alastor fan through and through and just thought their dynamic was very interesting #but the more I wrote of Vox the more I was like nah I fucking LOVE this guy he's SNAZZY #so: you and me both hahahaha

[spooksier]

HI I SAW THAT U GO TO PNCA WAS CURIOUS WHAT U THINK ABT THE SCHOOL, they offered me scholarship & stuff for anim but i dunno is it worth it? for like networking and learning and stuff

hi!! i actually finished up at pnca back in december (and i officially graduate in like three weeks! yippee!) so yeah! here's some of my thoughts on the school as somebody with a bfa in illustration and a minor in creative writing from there!

1. the teachers are amazing, they do not get paid enough for everything they do bc almost every prof i had at pnca went above and beyond for me if i needed help and consistently gave me rly rly useful direct critique

2. you get what you put in. the teachers are great but they will 100% let you stay at yr current skill level if you don't put in effort to get better so it's easy to kind of slip behind and stay there if you're not careful

3. pnca is currently either in the middle of or already finished with a merger with a bigger school in oregon (a bigger school that does Not Know What An Art School Is) so i'd be prepared for some incredibly annoying administration quirks relating to that lmao

4. really supportive environment imho, they will trust that you know what youre doing but they'll also be there to course-correct

5. networking! pnca actually has a partnership with laika and nike so they come visit p often and beyond that a lot of the professors are still working industry artists so it's not that hard to find networking opportunities but again you gotta search for them yourself

(secret number 6 bc idk if this applies to you haha but as a poc it was very apparent the whole time that pnca is a very white institution (like every art school sadly) and that's reflected in a very very white student body, im one of 20 black students enrolled and id be shocked if the total population of poc students exceeded 100 so be prepared as a poc to bear witness to some incredible White People Shit)

#ask! #tl;dr: i got a lot out of my time at pnca but a lot of that was because i went into college determined to get something out of it #you gotta want it! #favorite white people moments from pnca: 1. when somebody said they understood racism bc they had adhd #2. when a conversation about race got completely derailed by a woman saying that sculptors are discriminated against #3. i made fun of a poster and somebody tried to claim i wasn't black bc of it #last one happened 2 weeks ago. i love you portland.

[thistlefaethfort]

YELLOW

— read this first or this might not make sense!

— ao3 link!

If Sandra Lynn had her way, the Solesian Rangers work schedule would be a little more focused on rest and recovery, but she couldn’t really complain about the leniency the organisation had for people with families at home. No one had been more quick to sign off on her time off requests than her manager, she knew that Sandra Lynn was competent enough to catch up as quickly as needed. In a few months, she thought she would probably offer her the role herself. Today though, she finished up at lunch time and arrived home, shoulders weary with the weight of yellow paint cans.

It was a buttery, blonde colour that made her itchy to look at. It was the colour of Baxter’s feathers when they were downy and he was so young that sometimes she let him sleep at the foot of her bed, even on the nights Fig had crawled in between her and Gilear. It was something warm that got sharp late in the day, when the sun settled on it low in the sky late in the afternoon. Like milk poured in a sweet honey tea. It was golden and there were enough cans of it left on the shelf that Sandra Lynn thought people probably underestimated it. She thought it would make the chapel look like a bedroom.

It took her a handful of hours to painstakingly move everything away from the walls: the bedframe, the posters, the duffel bag that she point blank refused to look at for longer than a few seconds at a time — just in case. Once everything was piled up in the centre and covered with a tarp, Sandra Lynn put on an old shirt that was probably not hers but had ended up in her closet anyway and pulled out her brushes from under the sink. She washed the walls, scrubbed at them until dust stopped falling from the stone, and stared at the stained glass for long enough that the sun shifted to glare back through the angel's golden halo.

Then the door opened further across the house and she grinned to herself; it was easier now, to breathe knowing all the kids were safe under her roof, because she knew they were taking care of each other. There was no reason to hover around all the places her adopted and not yet adopted kids might be, because she was trying to trust that they would come to her if they needed a mom, or an adult, or a squirrel killer. Sandra Lynn could try to trust them for that. Fabian yelled something and Jawbone howled in a way that usually meant hang tight. Aelwyn spoke and there was a higher pitched response in that oh so similar Fallinel accent that was getting fainter as the two disappeared up the stairs. Fig cackled and there was the sound of at least four footsteps pounding across the house to where she knew her girl kept her guitar. She was distracted, not noticing when her final kid reappearing home for the day emerged through the door to her room.

It took a lot of effort not to jump and drop the paintbrush when Kristen’s voice, muffled by what looked like a fistful of popcorn that sprayed halfway across the room when she said ‘thandragh thlinn?’ Maybe time had gotten away from her, because she hadn’t expected for the girl to see the room until it was done, and her mind had already sprinted away to try and figure out if any beds were going spare tonight or if they should set up the den sleepover style. Pointedly, she didn’t think about how rare a night was where she didn’t hear light footsteps pattering about the house in the early hours. When everyone was home, there were ten kids with their own bedrooms (except for Adaine who let her sister share), and all of them were traumatised. They were good to each other though, and on the nights she thought the awake one might need a hug or a mug of tea, there was always a second teenager perched next to them; eyes blurry with sleep but risen for their friend anyway. She must have been quiet too long, because the voice started again, clear now, ‘are you painting in here? Did I forget you were doing this? I’m sorry —’ Sandra Lynn cut her off ‘ — I was wrong. Kristen I was wrong to put you in here and now the house is filling up and I don’t have a different room for you, so I picked up some paint,’ her fingers spasmed. It had been a bad, thoughtless call at the time. Kristen had grown up groomed and hurt by a church and she had to be reminded of every time she went to bed or woke up, and now she was sleeping in it alone, without even a God to pray goodnight to. She picked up one of the cans and showed her the colour, a glob hitting the tarp she had laid down over the old wood floors, and tried for a smile, ‘yellow, but not as bright as your tracksuit.’

Much to Sandra Lynn’s horror (because her shirt was covered in paint and her kid was wearing something other then that tracksuit for once and she would do anything to encourage her to wear other things as often as possible), Kristen’s eyes started to shine and her shoulders sagged. The woman dodged drips of paint and made her way to the girl, squeezing her shoulder hard enough to drag her back to earth. Her voice cracked and suddenly Sandra Lynn didn’t know whether or not she was going to cry herself, but she did laugh, just a little and quietly. ‘You got some muscle going kid, you sure you don’t wanna join the ranger track?’ She asked, mostly joking but not all the way. All of her Bad Kids were going to excel at whatever it was they chose to do in the end, but she hoped they thrived as a group first, she hoped they did whatever they wanted and it never hurt. Her smile grew a little bittersweet and she hoped Kristen didn’t catch it as she reminded herself that that was never how an adventurer’s story ended.

She offered out a paintbrush, ‘you gonna help me finish these last few walls or are you crashing at someone else’s room tonight?’

#sharkie writes #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #dimension 20 #the bad kids #sandralynn faeth #kristen applebees #jawbone o'shaughnessey #adaine abernant #fig faeth #figueroth faeth #fabian aramais seacaster #aelwyn abernant #gorgug thistlespring #riz gukgak #d20 #fantasy high ficlet

[grapecinnamon]

Been thinking of another cute but maybe kinda sad Welcome Home situation

Sooo....

Wally can't eat normally in the series. And it's implied he can't sleep either. But he slowly starts doing both. It takes a lot of effort to get him to eat properly with his mouth, but as for sleeping... that one kinda sneaks up on him, and no one tells him what it's gonna feel like or when it'll happen.

it happens when he's painting and he's inside of home, when he starts to feel drowsy. He's never felt this before and it feels weird. Imagine being drowsy for the very first time in your life and no one's there to explain. But he notices himself leaning over slightly in his chair, like he can't hold himself up. He feels his pompadour coming undone with how his head is positioned but he doesn't bother fixing it. He's trying to paint a tree to the right of the canvas but his mind is so foggy he can barely focus...

Then his hair falls in front of him, startling him and almost knocking him off his stool. "Home," he asks. "Why... do... I... feel... so......... low." his speech is more slowed down, it's harder for him to form his thoughts into words. Home doesn't know either. He's never seen Wally like this before.

It's not until Wally lets out a big yawn that Home understands. "What... was... that?" Wally asks himself. "Why... did... I... scream... so quietly?" Home explains in morse code and Wally understands but he doesn't want to accept it.

"What?... I'm drowsy?... But... this... doesn't... happen to me... I... don't... get... tired..." Home does morse code with its shutters and door again, suggesting Wally take a nap.

"Oh... but I'm... painting..." Home tells him to finish it later. "But Home... what... if... I... sleep... too... *yawn* long?" Home tells him he'll wake him in a couple hours. Really though, he's just saying that. They're actually gonna let Wally sleep until he wakes up on his own.

Wally sighs, and yawns again. "okay..." He puts the paintbrush down, too tired to clean it off. He walks slowly towards his bed, not before bumping into a table. "Ow." Both his tired head and his hair in front of his eyes were making it hard to focus. He made his way to the bed , knocked his shoes off, and crawled into the sheets. he would've changed into his pajamas, but he didn't really care.

His head hit the pillow. God it felt amazing. He tried to pick himself up but it felt too good. He figured he could've tricked Home, maybe lie on the bed for a couple hours instead of sleeping so he could get back to painting. But it was no use, he could hardly think as his eyes closed and he snuggled deep into the mattress, his blanket feeling like the best hug he's ever had. He holds the pillow as he rests his head against it.

It doesn't take long until Home hears something from Wally. Instead of the repeated "I'm sleeping, I'm sleeping, I'm sleeping," Home hears quiet snoring, the kind you hear from a small cat. Home couldn't help but watch over the little snoozing peanut, imagining what he was probably dreaming about.

Bonus: Wally, deep in his slumber, gets a phone call from a neighbor. The phone is right next to the bed and without thinking, Wally's hand picks up the phone and quickly puts it back down. Whoever was calling won't be hearing from Wally for a while🍎😴

#welcome home #welcome home puppet show #welcome home arg #welcome home fandom #wally darling #wally darling welcome home #home welcome home #welcome home prompts #welcome home writing #this is making me sleepy damn #god I love this little man so much #I just want him to experience a great nap #and without his remderem too

[ctallena]

hii!! don't be shy posting anythin, that's cool when new people appear who write south park stuff! 🤍 can i request (f!reader) picnic headcannons with kenny, stanley and kyle? it can be platonic or romantic(sure, aged up), idc

sure!! thank u sm for being my first headcannons req anon !! 🤍 ill try my best with these bc i never was on a picnic so i have to use my imagination on how it works.. also i made this romantic, theyre like 17-18 here

⋆ PICNIC WITH MAIN 3 :

✩ — STAN !

this guy was so flattered when u asked him to go do a picnic with u

he was so excited he couldnt sleep

brought cookies and dr pepper...

its because he was walking around the store for like 30 minutes in denial of what would you like to eat 😭😭

like.. will u like it? what if youre picky? mostly everyone likes cookies so cookies it is

butttttt he brought money to the picnic too in case you need something

he picks a nice outfit for himself!!

and by that i dont mean a suit or anything like that... its just a tee that you once said you liked and his fav baggy jeans

so nervous before meeting u for the picnic. mostly bc of the food. what if youre not happy with the food he brought☹️

he brought a picnic blanket too tho!!

he tries to settle it himself but its sort of windy and he drops the blanket...

it flies away

but dw luckily he got it!!

he tries to settle it ahain but DONT trust him with that bc its gonna fly away again so help him pls😭

once its all settled he tries to make it romantic somehow?? he doesnt know how to be romantic without it being corny tho😕

so he just passes u everything u ask for!!

totally did not put the picnic basket next to himself on purpose..

with stan its mostly just giggles and stuff. he will hold your hand or hug you there and there but he enjoys just talking with you like he would with a best friend, if you know what i mean??

he kisses your cheek and thanks you for all the effort you put in everything <3

✩ — KYLE !

he suggests the picnic 🤗

kyle is the most organized one of them all

before the picnic he knows what to bring and what food you like

like what??? how did he know that?? did he put cameras around ur house or smth

or maybe ur parents just like him a lot so they told him stuff..

keeps checking if he has everything

he also brings you a flower!!

hes a gentleman😭

somehow manages to settle the blanket himself??

he also picked the perfect time of the day so it would be sunset

puts sm effort in to show you how much he loves you!! hes so sweet

brought like a backup hoodie for you just in case youre cold😕

he doesn't really like touching you in public, so expect a hug and a kiss from him only after it gets darker after the sunset

or if he thinks no one is watching

ike definitely wanted to go with you two

kyle said no

he wants it to be a moment just for you and him

ike still comes along with sheila "on accident" but for like a few minutes bc kyle begged them to leave you two alone😭

HE WAS SO EMBARRASSED THAT HIS MOM CAME TOO💔

he apologizes to you

its not like hes embarrassed bc of sheila, its just the fact that his MOM came, if u get what i mean

what more can i say?

besides that its all perfect !!

✩ — KENNY !

you suggest the picnic

he thought abt it before and wanted to ask you too but money... 😕

he immediately said yes and saved money just for that occasion

he knows what food u like

its because usually when you two hang out he randomly asks you stuff like "whats your fav food?" in that case

and he remembers every answer u give him🤗🤗

he brought food and you brought the blanket

he actually made sure to bring enough for the two of you

thats so sweet😕

he doesnt gaf abt public, he will show his love to you everywhere

so he has his arm wrapped around you most of the time

and also kisses your shoulder or cheek sometimes !!

he would do the rizz thing with "hey you have something there" while pointing at ur chest and then he would grab ur chin so u look at him and he kisses u

its just a joke tho😭

thats not a great way to flirt in his opinion

he would also chuckle before kissing u !!

sweeeeeeeet

after the picnic he offers to walk you to your home <3

he also holds your hand while walking

when youre about to leave he hugs you and thanks you for everything too🤗

fill my requests up guys!!

#south park x y/n #south park x you #south park x reader #south park #stan marsh x y/n #stan marsh x you #stan marsh x reader #stan marsh #kyle broflovski x y/n #kyle broflovski x reader #kyle broflovski #kenny mccormick x y/n #kenny mccormick x reader #kenny mccormick

[the-conversation-pod]

Let's Go, Lesbians! (A Japanese GL Episode)

And we're back! This week we're back with @ginnymoonbeam to talk about Toxic Yuri in Chaser Game W and Food Yuri in She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat. Join us as we talk about pouring champagne on your ex's head, slapping your mean boss and her big ass red outfit into next week, choosing yourself over your cruel family, becoming the best gay you can be, and marshmallow parties.

Also, because we did not talk about it in the recording, we want to repost Rina Sawayama's Chosen Family song because this scene was so powerful in SLTCSLTE.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction 00:02:45 - Chaser Game W: A Flop 00:18:31 - She Loves To Cook, and She Loves To Eat 00:23:14 - SLTCSLTE: The Women 00:34:18 - SLTCSLTE: Yako and The New House 00:39:17 - SLTCSLTE: The Food and Nagumo 00:43:02 - SLTCSLTE: Depictions of Intimacy 00:50:53 - SLTCSLTE Ratings and Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back. This week, we're talking about lesbians, finally! And we brought a friend along.

NiNi

Say hi Ginny.

Ginny

Hello!

NiNi

Ginny is here with us and we are going to talk two Japanese GLs, Chaser Game W and She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat. 

Ben, what did you think, like, sort of overarching about these two before we delve into the nitty gritty?

Ben

I thought Chaser Game W gave us a lot to anticipate early on, and unfortunately went in the direction we did not want it to go. Ended up being kind of a mess toward the end? I did not end up walking away too happy with it. 

With She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat season 2, this time we had twenty 15-minute episodes and they had things to do and say with that time and I have a lot of things to say about that show. [laughs]

NiNi

Ginny, what are your overarching thoughts about these two shows?

Ginny

I had high hopes for Chaser Game W because I always want more toxic lesbians. [NiNi laughs] I want to see the girls get to be messy, I want to see complicated dynamics. And I did really enjoy the first couple episodes, but it kind of felt like the characterizations really fell apart as the series progressed, which was a big disappointment. 

She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat was a delight. Every time I sat down to watch it, my heart was full and happy and warm.

00:02:45 - Chaser Game W: A Flop

NiNi

We always go from worst to first on this show, so let's start with Chaser Game W. 

Ben, what is Chaser Game W about?

Ben

Chaser Game W is about a team of women at a game development studio in Japan who have been contracted to develop basically a demo for a GL adaptation, by a Chinese company named Vincent. It gets complicated by their project manager from the Chinese team, who clearly has beef with one of their team members and just spends most of the early show fucking with her because she's mad that they broke up in college. And then a bunch of other shit happens that is kind of weird.

NiNi

Okay, that's a hell of a description [laughs].

Ben

I'm sorry! Like, it starts off being a show that looks like it's playing into the complex dynamics about workplace power and possibly sexual harassment, and then kind of loses its way because it wants to be this mess of a story about lesbians with families and the difficult choices they have to make, and where do the husbands and children fit in this, and how does this play into career expectations? Bosses who might also be queer but evil queers?

And it's not necessarily a very coherent experience. There's a lot of ideas that sound good when you describe them to people, but in practice really weren't that satisfying to watch. This was not the Japanese GL experience I was hoping for.

NiNi

Ginny, what about you? What are your thoughts on Chaser Game W?

Ginny

It did seem like it was setting up to have some messages about not only the sexuality components, but also things about women in the workplace and being a mother and balancing those expectations… dealing with sexual harassment… all of that. But it didn't end up saying much that was meaningful to me about it, it just was like, ‘these are issues!’ If you try to draw any kind of conclusion from what the show is doing, you end up with some really messy messages. 

The way that the evil queer boss came in was so funny to me. One of the selling points of this show is this strong femdom, woman in power exacting humiliation dynamic. But halfway through the show, we're resolving the relationship between the two women, so Fuyu, our previous femdom power boss, is not going to be that anymore. So we have to bring in a new one — and it just did not work for me.

NiNi

It was the dom getting dommed. It was like an inception of domming. It was a little strange. There were definitely some Chinese-Japanese dynamics in there. I don't have the cultural competency to pick up on entirely what they were doing, but it was pretty clear from the way that the show was operating. I don't know if it's stereotype, but it was clear that there was something going on there; my cultural competency in this area is not enough to figure out exactly what was going on there.

Ben

It was kind of weird seeing a Japanese show complaining about unrealistic expectations of Chinese developers? This is not a uniquely Chinese problem.

NiNi

I feel like it being set in gaming almost didn't matter to that side of things? They wanted to have this difference the show sees in working cultures be stark and to say something about that difference. But the supposed center of this, aside from the game and the development of the game, is a relationship between Fuyu and Itsuki. It's an extremely convoluted central story that just seems to serve as an excuse for why Fuyu, when she comes back to Japan, hates Itsuki so much. 

The writing feels slightly unnecessarily complicated, but I actually rather enjoyed quite a lot of bits of this. I enjoyed, for example, the direction. I thought the camera was very assured, I thought it was very clear. I don't know if this is an original story or if it's coming from manga, but the direction is very very clear to me. I really enjoyed watching the camera move. The shots are really effective. But the story itself? It's not like I thought necessarily that… the story was badly told? I'm just not sure that it was the story that I wanted. Where we're going in the beginning with Fuyu, a mean lesbian comes back and is mean to her ex-girlfriend, I felt like, okay, that's where we're going. And then, suddenly, Fuyu is married and Fuyu has a daughter and there's all this stuff around the husband and Fuyu’s feelings, or not-feelings, about the husband. It got a little muddy. 

But even with all of that, I think I probably enjoyed it more than you guys did. And I think part of the reason is that I binged it? So I didn't sit with a lot of these feelings or a lot of the confusion for very long.

Ben

It was not a fun week to week watch. As it started to deviate and get lost in itself, it was not fun to be like, 'oh right, this is where we were, all right, let's go and see how this week goes. Ohh… no. Okay.' 

You asked about whether it's original or an adaptation. It is an adaptation. The original work is about power harassment, but I believe Itsuki’s character is a man? A lot about the show made sense once we realized that it was not an original queer story being adapted. A lot of it felt really tacked on to justify the drama and not really something that the writing really contextualized or dwelled on, at all.

Ginny

There were a lot of big character turns and big decisions made without a lot of grounding in why this character would make this choice. Once the mystery of their past is explained, you do understand why they reconcile suddenly, but then all of their choices afterwards just felt baffling to me. I'm not getting any kind of character journey. The show is like, well, this happens now, and then this happens now, and then they do this thing that you didn't expect. And I want to know why!

NiNi

I… feel like in some bits I was cottoning onto it, and then in some bits I was not. For example, when Itsuki starts to take care of Fuyu’s daughter, when she comes over and realizes that the husband's left and her daughter needs taking care of. I followed that bit of the character journey. I understood in some ways why, when the husband came back, Fuyu felt maybe guilty? 

There was also, like, a little thing which I was really surprised didn't go anywhere. Early in the show the husband was video chatting with, I think his mother. And she says something like, 'you know, you have to be good to Fuyu. You're so lacking, and she is with you anyway.' that made me think that their marriage was lavender? I genuinely thought that they had some kind of arrangement or agreement — and then to find out later down the line that the husband actually was in love with her and was jealous of the thing that she had with Itsuki? That came out of nowhere for me. And then everything that followed on from there kind of didn't track, almost. 

Did either of you get that feeling initially from the husband and were surprised or was that just me?

Ginny

My sense was that the husband had been perceived as not a good marriage prospect. Probably it was not earning a lot of money and had other loserish qualities or something. So my sense from the conversation was that that was what she was talking about. I certainly didn't ever get the sense that he was in love with her, exactly? Even when he's upset, it felt more to me kind of about pride. You can't have your wife sleeping around. That's an embarrassment. I don't think there were any deep feelings in that marriage.

NiNi

I don't even think either of them really had extremely deep feelings for their daughter. Like I think Fuyu loves her daughter, but in a distracted kind of way, almost? The only depth of feeling that I felt anywhere was between Fuyu and Itsuki, and even that was tied up in all this anger and bitterness and guilt and whatever else. That's a direction to go in for sure, but it really didn't make me understand why they wanted to be together, and then why they decided not to be together… and then in the end, why Fuyu comes back out of nowhere. 

It's all muddled and mixed for me, especially the closer that we get to the end. But like I said, I don't think that I had as bad a time with it as other people might have.

Ben

I had a very bad time. [Ben and NiNi laugh] 

This show was aggravating. We've been talking about this a lot on the show lately about how much work we think we should do for a show to like, meet them emotionally, where they're trying to take us. There are times when either the writing or the performance doesn't necessarily get you all the way there? And you kind of have to just feel it for the show. But this show just does not feel complete. There are a bunch of ideas that are fine on their own, like, ‘and then she comes in here and then she pours a fucking champagne on her head.’ That's an unhinged lesbian behavior that I have seen happen in person! So like, I totally believed that.

NiNi

Oh yeah.

Ben

But then Fuyu’s turn where she’s suddenly nice to other women in the company that they're in and stops being a huge dick to the other moms, that just doesn't really track? Like, what changed in that moment? I don't really know how we went there. They had her suddenly start being nice to them so they could be on the same team against Big Red.

NiNi

I'm so mad that you called her Big Red, but it kinda works. [Ben and NiNi laugh] I'm not gonna call her anything except Big Red now.

Ben

I did not remember what her character name was. Her name was Big Red.

Ginny

That's her name now, yep [laughs].

Ben

Like it was funny when Itsuki was like, 'Fuck off, Big Red' and knocked her ass down. [all laugh]

All these moments are like, well, that was amusing on its own, but it doesn't really come together as a coherent story unto itself. There’s this huge branching point later on where it's basically the supporting cast trying to seduce a guy to give them information to save the game, and that's happening separately from the drama with Itsuki, Fuyu, Fuyu’s husband, Big Red and all the drama going on there. 

NiNi 

I want to talk a little bit about the actual game development plot, because that stuff was wild. They're preparing whatever they have to do to develop this game, and along the way they're going through literal sexual harassment. There's a point in time that they're trying to get information from this artist. And this guy is a caricature of a sexual harasser, like at one point there are five of these female game developers in his house, and they're literally peeling this guy off of each other as he gropes them. And I'm just like, is this normal or is this exaggerated? I don't even know?

Ben 

Actually, it felt like most of that was actually normal. 

NiNi 

That is terrifying. 

Ben 

The drama with the team felt pretty straightforward for me. You had women in the team having varied responses to the sexual harassment. One of them was like, 'I will absolutely not compromise myself and use sex to get ahead' and another one was like, 'I will, I got this for us.' [Ben and NiNi laugh] I thought that was fine. I didn't mind there being a character who is willing to use men's desire to advance her goals and her team’s goals. I liked that it wasn't required only for her to do that, that there were other people who didn't want to do it that way accomplishing things for their team. The up and down of, ‘is this game going to get developed or not, the expectations of our client keep changing, it seems to be for reasons well beyond us and other drama’ — that felt fairly normal for trying to get any sort of major creative endeavor with the expensive team off the ground. Most of the game development stuff tracked normally for me. Even the whole plot line about poaching talent and then dumping talent: that is a real problem right now. That sort of stuff mostly tracked for me. I wasn't that fussed about the game development stuff and the workplace conditions that they were working under. 

It was the stuff about Fuyu and Itsuki's relationship and the motivations around them romantically, and other characters’ reactions to it, that is where I struggled the most with this. It wasn't a show that left you in a cool place at the end of an episode and picked up in a great place with the next episode. Spending two months watching this was not a great experience. 

NiNi 

I think my rating’s definitely going to be higher than you guys, so I'll go first. 

Ben 

Okay. 

NiNi 

I'm gonna say 7. To me, bits are cool and I can follow generally where this is going, and the bits that I thought were weird were not offensive. It wasn’t very good, but it wasn't terrible. 

Ben 

Ginny? 

Ginny 

I gave it a 5.5. 6 is my mad-I-watched-it threshold. Anything 6 or higher might be very bad, but I'm not mad I watched it. Below a 6 I'm kind of mad that I watched it. That's where this one landed for me. 

Fuyu was very beautiful, and I did enjoy watching her every week. But when that's the nicest thing I have to say about a show, it's not good. 

Ben 

It gave this a 4. It is not recommended. I don't think this is a good lesbian story. I don't think this is a good game development story. I don't think it's a good workplace story. It is a mess. This was developed by the same person who made His the movie, so I am very confused how we ended up with something that absolutely failed on the queer front like this. I do not get it. When this show was confused, it lands on the wrong side of the coin a lot. And it felt like at the very last five minutes they were doing a shit ton of clean up. I don't think this show is worthwhile. 

NiNi 

That's gonna land us somewhere in the 5ish range overall?

Ben 

Round it down, because it sucks! [all laugh] It gets a 5 from The Conversation. 

NiNi 

So that is officially a chop. 

00:18:31 - She Loves To Cook, and She Loves To Eat

NiNi 

All right. So we're gonna leave that behind and we're going to move on to She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat. 

Ben, give us the synopsis. What is She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat about?

Ben 

Okay, let me be much nicer now because this is one of my favorite shows now. So, [laughs] She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat is like the lesbian neighbor of What Did You Eat Yesterday? We have a young woman who's a programmer. She feels like she's like late 20s, early 30s. Her name is Nomoto. She runs like a food account on Instagram, and whenever she's in a bad mood and needs to work through some stuff, she ends up making too much food, and she has a small appetite, so it goes to waste. She has a neighbor who is a taller, bigger woman, and on a whim one night she invites her over to share food with her. And this is the beginning of their friendship that eventually becomes a more serious relationship.

Second season picks up with twice as many episodes, and boy did they need them. We spend this season with Nomoto and Kasuga befriending their new, younger woman neighbor. Nomoto becomes a full-time employee at her work and develops a more reliable friendship with Sayama. She also befriends her Twitter friend Yako, who is basically one of us. She loves her stories, she loves her little food, and she loves hearing about other people's drama and poking them to get their shit together. I love her so much. 

It was a really delightful season watching these two grow closer, figure out what their relationship was going to be, and develop that into more as they dealt with some of their real personal and professional issues. I really, truly loved the season. 

Ginny, you were fairly recent to watching this, so you watched the first and second season basically as one dedicated viewing experience. What was your experience engaging with this for the first time in the last month or so? 

Ginny 

It was very fun. I did this as my unwinding as I was moving in with my girlfriend who is the loves to eat in our relationship, where I'm the loves to cook. So it was a lovely experience. The two seasons flow so seamlessly into each other. Season 2 picks up right where season 1 left off so I'm kind of glad I did it this way. I think I might have been a little frustrated at the end of season 1, especially having to wait and not knowing if we'd get more, because they don't entirely confirm their relationship by the end of that? It's understood that they're very important to each other and they have this very meaningful place in each other's lives, celebrating holidays together, but they don't even start to have conversations about what their relationship is until we're a little ways into season 2. So I'm glad that I got to watch it all unfold as a single story. 

So many details of, just the way that that develops between them felt so realistic to journeys that I've seen between two women who are close friends and realize that they might have romantic feelings for each other. All of the angsting you do about that, and the 'what does this mean' and the 'what does it even mean to love someone romantically instead of as just this very special, most importantest friend in the world,' — just so many little details were perfectly done and extremely relatable. It was just gorgeous. 

Ben 

NiNi, since you watched the first season and angsted with the rest of us about whether or not it was going to come back, and whether or not that second season was gonna be good, what were your overall impressions of the second season after you walked away from it? 

NiNi 

I loved it, but I knew I was going to love it. I had some angst in the middle of the season that we're probably gonna get to, not bad angst. Just, ‘oh, I wonder if they're doing this thing that I think that they're doing.’ But I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I love so much how the show expands in this season. The first season is very tightly focused, mostly on Nomoto and Kasuga, whereas this season expands outward to show you some of the other people in their life and show you them developing their relationships with these other people, some new, some not. I always love stories that show you the life that these people are living. So I thoroughly enjoyed this season, had a great time with it. 

00:23:14 - SLTCSLTE: The Women

Ben

There were a lot of presentations of various women's issues that played out this season. Do the two of you have particular storylines that you especially enjoyed, or connected to?

Ginny

I love Nagumo's story. I think the one I connected to most was probably Kasuga, but I thought bringing in Nagumo as someone who could receive some mentorship from these two women and also [laughs] kind of help coach Kasuga through her feelings revelation, and relationship transition… it was a beautiful relationship and a wonderful addition, and the way that her character brings a different perspective on the whole nature of food and communal eating was also just a gorgeous touch.

Ben

What about you, NiNi? Did you have a particular plot line that you enjoyed or connected to?

NiNi

We got some stuff on the fringes about Sayama trying to date and looking to potentially get married, realizing and talking to Nomoto that she can't get married if she wants to, and then that leading Sayama to think about whether she even wants to get married. That resonated in a particular kind of way. It was a quiet little side runner, it didn't take up a lot of space in the story, but it did hit me. We end the season without really an answer from Sayama on that, but the fact that she started thinking about it? That resonated with me, for sure.

Ben

What I love about Sayama as a straight character in this narrative is: queer people don't fit the heterosexual mold, and loving queer people forces you to reckon with why we don't. And then that can often open up things for you, as well. I really loved her apology scene with Nomoto. Recognizing that her working through her own ambivalence about marriage is dismissive of the fact that it's not even an option available for Nomoto.

Ginny

You also have Kasuga's coworker, who's older and is getting a divorce after her children have grown up. Getting a divorce is extremely liberating for her. It really does show this kind of 360 view of heterosexual marriage not necessarily being right for all heterosexual women.

Ben

I think it's notable that when they show multiple older women working at this grocery store, they're all like, 'mm-mm, divorce was the right call for me, because I don't think it's right that I'm expected to take care of my husband's family and everybody else does nothing, and that's gonna be my entire existence.' And I love how explicit she was, she told Kasuga straight up: if you were my own daughter, who I do have, I would tell her the same thing, and I would say please live your life. Do not sacrifice your life for a bunch of other people who do not appreciate what you want for your life. Because Kasuga decided to sever ties with her family, because they did not respect her and they wanted her to just take care of them, and sacrifice anything she wanted for her life. It was really lovely that the show went out of its way to be explicit about that.

NiNi

Since we're already sort of diving into it, let's lean into that storyline. Kasuga left home a long time ago and decided to live her life. Kasuga has a brother who is the favored child, but Kasuga’s brother does nothing. Now Kasuga's parents are older and ill, and her grandparents are older and ill and need taking care of. And so Kasuga's dad has started looking for her now. He's like, 'Well, you're not married, whatever you're doing isn't important, you gotta come home and take care of everybody.' It only comes to her doorstep because her aunt gives her father both her number and address, because 'oh, you’re a family, you shouldn’t not talk to each other.' Her aunt thinks she's doing the right thing, but this is definitely not the right thing for Kasuga. Kasuga's father has never appreciated her as a person, has never cared about her as a person, has only focused on his son. And now he wants Kasuga to take care of him essentially until he dies. Kasuga really struggles with this. She wonders, is this my responsibility? Is this something that I have to do? Is she a bad daughter if she doesn't do this? What does this mean for her? Fujita tells her, 'Look, if you were my daughter, I would tell you do not go. You don't have a responsibility to give up your life for somebody else.'

All the conversations that Kasuga has with her father, she has them in her car. She does not talk to him when she is in her house, her safe space? She does not speak to her father in there. When she has decided that she's not going home, not just not going home, but never going home again, she sits in the car and has the conversation where she tells him, 'I'm not ever coming home. Don't contact me again.' And then she goes from the car straight to Nomoto. And Nomoto gets so furious on her behalf that she starts to cry. She's like, 'I can't believe that this man made you feel this way about yourself. He's a horrible person.' Basically, everything that Kasuga needed to hear, she got from Nomoto in that moment. 

I am an eldest daughter. I have a fantastic relationship with my family. And any caregiving I do is of my own volition, and I am happy to do it. It is still tiring. It is still exhausting. Even when it is received with gratitude and happiness and love, it is hard to do. If you have to take care of people who don't care about you? You can feel like you're dying. I am certain about it. That expectation being placed on you is hard enough. To do it for people [who] do not love you — because I do not think Kasuga’s father loves her — is impossible. And so I had a lot of feelings about it while it was happening, but watching her say, 'No, I am not going to just let go of my entire life and everything that I want for this person.' 

And then to have Fujita tell her, 'if you were my daughter,' which releases her from that burden of thinking about her mother — because that's the other part of the guilt that she's feeling. Not necessarily guilt towards her father, but the fact that if she doesn't come home, her mother's gonna have to do all of this. And she thinks about her mother all the time. It's just, it's so much. It's so deep. It's so intense. It's so delicious. And it's not what you expect to get out of a story that's told in little 15-minute episodes! It really isn't.

Ginny

I'm also an eldest daughter and feel so much of that. I spent my childhood, really, like Kasuga, very aware that there were a lot of things I was expected to give up. The way that that sinks into your brain… you just feel like, 'I am worth what I can do for people.' 

What struck me the most in that conversation with Nomoto when Kasuga first tells her what she's done, is Nomoto begs her to keep living her life here where she's thriving, and to keep being happy. Through their whole relationship, Nomoto has taken such joy in Kasuga’s love of eating and just celebrated that this gives you pleasure and you're taking pleasure, and that's a wonderful thing. And in this moment, she kind of expands it to Kasuga's whole life. And she says, please don't ever go somewhere where you can't thrive, where you can't feel joy, where you can't feel loved, and yourself. To hear someone say that? I think I did cry in that scene. You need to hear someone say that. Someone who grew up like Kasuga needs someone who loves you begging you to take care of yourself and to do what brings you joy. The heart of their relationship and what draws them together is how deeply Nomoto celebrates Kasuga taking care of herself and being taken care of and experiencing pleasure. It's beautiful.

Ben

I really enjoyed the way that continued in the whole strawberry debacle.

NiNi

[laughs] The strawberry thing. It was so funny. [Ginny laughs] It was so cute, too. It was really cute. This is after they've started dating, but their relationship hasn't changed very much. And so she asked Nagumo, is there something that she should be doing? Which I found adorable.

Ginny

It's so real.

Ben

It's funny, too, because Nagumo admits she doesn't have much experience either [Ginny laughs], and is like, 'You could, like, go do things you both like doing? Together? That sounds right.' [all laugh]

NiNi

It’s so funny. And that's when she sees this flyer for the strawberry picking. And she's like, 'Oh, okay, I like strawberry picking. I should ask Nomoto to go strawberry picking with me. That's like the kind of thing that people do when they're in relationships, right?'

Ben

'That's, like, a food thing. She likes to make food. This might be fun!' Kasuga doesn't really say what she wants to do, she just hands it to Nomoto and is like, 'Hey, I thought this might be fun for us to do' and Nomoto’s like, 'Oh, yeah, that sounds great. We can maybe go vegetable picking and then make some stuff afterwards.' And Kasuga doesn't really speak up about what she maybe wanted. 

Late in the day Nomoto realizes Kasuga maybe wanted to go check out a restaurant in the area, and wanted to maybe do strawberry picking instead. And Nomoto ends up feeling so bad about this, feeling like she was not really receptive to what Kasuga actually wanted, and like she was steamrolling her. This plays out across almost two or three episodes, but the culmination is Nomoto saying very clearly to Kasuga, 'I want you to be selfish with me. I want you to feel like you can want things and express them. It's really important to me that you are doing the things you enjoy.'

Ginny

And Kasuga admits that that's hard for her. Another moment that rang so true for me, for both of them.

Ben

So much of their relationship is Nomoto getting intense pleasure [laughs] out of watching Kasuga enjoy herself.

00:34:18 - SLTCSLTE: Yako and The New House

Ben

I'd like to talk about my favorite character of the season.

NiNi

Ben wants to talk about Yako. Let's go.

Ben

Yako is the best thing that has happened to BL and GL in the last two years. [laughs]

NiNi

She's really just like us. [laughs]

Ben

No character’s been a better audience stand in than an asexual lesbian enjoying her wine and her takeout, watching gay movies with other girls, and then hearing about their relationship drama and giving completely reasonable advice by just asking questions.

Ginny

Best life.

Ben

I love her so much. She is everything that I am trying to be every day. [NiNi laughs] And she's good at it! [laughs] She never tells anybody, 'Just do it.' She's just like, 'What are you feeling? How do you feel if you don't do it? Well, there you go.’

And then they have the curry party? That looked like so much fun. They all go over to Yako's house and meet her properly. Nomoto and Kasuga take Nagumo with them. And they make a bunch of different curry, and naan, and some fancy juice, and they have themselves a good-ass time. And this leads to Yako becoming friends with Nagumo, and she ends up becoming a confidante to Nagumo as well. She recognizes after the girls reveal they're gonna move out that somebody should check on Nagumo, who has probably gotten used to having two really reliable neighbors who care about her, and how Nagumo might be anxious about saying, like, she misses them and still wants to see them. Even as Nagumo admits, moving out is the right call for them, I love that Yako gave Nagumo space to admit that she was a bit bummed that she was gonna not be living next to two solid friends anymore. 

I love Yako so much. She is in competition for blorbo of the year.

NiNi

Yako has the best ideas for parties, too, like the first time she had the watch party with Nomoto, they've both got snacks and drinks, and they're talking about what they've got for their snacks and their drinks and then they watch a lesbian movie and they cry. [Ben and Ginny laugh] It’s so good. Literally, Yako is really just like us. 

The only thing I'm sad about in this entire season is that Sayama hasn't yet become a part of this whole little group that they have, but she will. I know she will.

Ben

They just moved in together. They got a big space. There's room for Fujita and Sayama to show up for another party they're gonna have. These two could host all six major female characters at their new place. 

Let's talk about the new place while we're here. Where…?

[all laugh]

NiNi

Go ahead. I know you want to.

Ben

I love Kasuga. I love everything about her. I love her big chair, I love her big bed, I love her big TV. I need to know where these things are going to go in the new space. [NiNi laughs] Nomoto is totally fine to just use her iPad as her fill-in device for all of her tech needs and entertainment needs. I understand Kasuga. When I moved out, I got myself two big-ass TVs! I need to know where this goes in their new space.

NiNi

[laughs] Doing it real big, right?

Ben

Mhmm! Her car real big. Shoes real big. TV real big. Everything real big.

NiNi

We can talk a little bit about the new space. It looks really good. I like the way that it feels like both of them, which is exactly what you want in a place where you’re gonna be moving in together. But can we just talk about how U-Haul lesbian it is of them to get together and immediately start talking about moving in together?

Ginny

Hang on, they started talking about moving in together [Ben laughs] and then got together. That was the order! [NiNi laughs] They were like—

NiNi

That is true, that is fair.

Ginny

—'I’m gonna move.' 

'Oh my God. I can't bear the thought of you leaving, but I understand why you have to.' 

'Well, it's okay ‘cause I was going to ask if you wanted to move in. Also, are we in love with each other?'

Like, that was the conversation. [NiNi laughs]

Ben

'And we finally picked a place to live. Do you wanna make out for the first time?' 

NiNi

[laughs] And the other good part of it is that before any of this, they somehow adopted a child together.

Ben

Right?

Ginny

Yeah! This all tracks. This is all very typical. 

NiNi

Mmhmm. This felt like the correct order of things for lesbians.

00:39:17 - SLTCSLTE: The Food and Nagumo

NiNi

Okay, we need to talk about food.

Ben

Okay.

NiNi

Because Ben started talking about the curry party and I got excited.

Ben

I got hungry, I need to go make food after this. [Ben and Ginny laugh]

NiNi

We didn't even talk yet about the takoyaki party. I am not a huge fan of takoyaki, but that looked really good.

Ben

All right, as we go into the food, let's talk about Nagumo's eating disorder, because I think that this is one of my favorite food plots in a food show in a long time.

NiNi

One of the things about these food shows is that it's about the communal experience of food. Nagumo has a social anxiety disorder where she can't eat in front of other people. The way that this is brought to the surface, and then the way that Kasuga and Nomoto figure out how to include her in the communal experience without trying to force her to eat or making it an anxious space for her where other people are eating… There's something about Kasuga that just reads incredibly reliable from the off. So when Nagumo first meets Kasuga, she very quickly gets very comfortable and feels like she can tell this woman anything. And Kasuga is just so forthright and so understanding about things, that when Nagumo tells her, you know, 'I really can't eat in front of other people,' the first thing she asks her is 'oh, well, can you drink something? Can I make you a cup of tea?' And that sort of becomes a jumping off point for the way that they interact when they're having these communal experiences around food, and the way that Kasuga explains to other people for Nagumo, but without giving too many details of Nagumo's private business. The way that these women make a comfortable space for her to still have the community of meals together without forcing her to eat, drives Nagumo to say, 'I want to go and get myself treated because I want to be able to eat with these women, because I care about them.'

Ben

I really love the arc of that. In a show about two people bonding over food, they met somebody who they couldn't necessarily do that with right away, they had to work into it. And I love the way that they slowly built that out — like the donut party was so satisfying.

NiNi

Donut party was fantastic.

Ben

There’s the donut party. There's the marshmallow party.

NiNi

Don't get me started on Nomoto and her, like, zoning out thinking about Kasuga with these marshmallows. [laughs] It was almost erotic but not in a male gaze erotic kind of way. She's got a comically large number of bags of marshmallows in Nomoto’s mind that she's hugging to her, and then she starts eating the marshmallows with a smile on her face. [laughs] All this is happening in Nomoto’s imagination and I'm just like, 'Yes, girl. Yeah, I understand what is happening to you right now.' [laughs] She's zoning out thinking about Kasuga and these marshmallows and I am cracking up. I'm having a whale of a—Oh, it's so good. 

Okay. I'm gonna get over Kasuga and marshmallows, but [laughs] not immediately. So good, so funny. No notes.

00:43:02 - SLTCSLTE: Depictions of Intimacy

Ben

You had a little bit of hesitation in the middle of the second season. Do you want to talk about that on the show? And do you feel resolved by the way they played it out?

NiNi

Not resolved, but more… comforted, I guess. Part of the agita, I think that I was having, is that I was working through myself. Yako and Nomoto are watching these lesbian films. Yako is introducing Nomoto to these lesbian movies, and they're watching them together. And Nomoto is saying she's watching these movies and all these women are so passionate, and she knows that she likes Kasuga in a romantic way, but she doesn't think that she has these passionate feelings like these women in these films. That's when Yako tells her, 'Well, you know, I'm asexual, this is how I feel about these things.' 

And in the middle of the season when this is happening, I had a bit of a moment where I'm just like, okay, is it that they're doing this purity thing where it's fine to be a lesbian if you don't have sex or sexual feelings? It was something that I was worried about. I think it was a little bit of burden of representation stuff that I was maybe putting on the show? That I felt like it was important to show female sexuality as being good and okay and fine, and not to wrap female sexuality and women loving women up in this thing of it being somehow chaste and pure. That was something that was coming from my own thoughts about it. There's not a lot of ace spectrum rep out there in terms of media and dramas in this field, so intellectually I felt like, oh, well, this is fine. But emotionally, I was having a hard time with. Intellectually, I'm like, okay, yes, if it is that this is an ace lesbian story, this is fine because there's not a lot of representation of that, either. But then I was also, like, feeling that even if it was ace lesbian representation, it was being done in this weird binary where you're either sexual or you're not, when acespec is just a whole spectrum of things. I was getting tied up in my own feelings about a lot of this, and it was giving me a little bit of grief and a little bit of gripe. 

But when we come down through the season and come down towards the end of the season, it starts to feel more like a journey of discovery, of Nomoto figuring out what labels that she would apply to herself that make her feel comfortable with the relationship, and understanding how she feels about Kasuga and in what ways they want to proceed with their relationship and the things that they want to try or not try, and having those conversations with Kasuga, as well. And that eased me in the way that I was feeling about it. I fully admit that I got tied up in my own feelings about this, because it didn't have anything to do with what the show was doing. It works out well. I feel comfortable and comforted by the way that the story goes down through to the end. I'm good with where they've decided to take Nomoto, and Nomoto and Kasuga’s relationship, and where they have hopefully paused, not stopped.

Ginny

I understand that feeling completely. I feel some kind of meta regret that the two lesbian shows we’re talking about, the horny kinky concept one was bad, and the very chaste, ace spectrum one was good. I would love more horny kinky concept lesbians that are also actually well done. But as you said, that's not a problem with this show as it is just sort of with the bigger media landscape, and the show is giving also voice to really important, very representative experiences. 

I love where they land on the question of physical intimacy, because I was wondering what they were going to do having gotten so far into the season. They hardly ever touch each other. There is this sensuality in their relationship around food, and I don't think it functions as a metaphor or a substitute for sex — it's just a different kind and source of pleasure that is important to their relationship, and that's so cool and I love it! But I love where they end up on the question of touch. Kasuga saying, 'yes, I would like to try things out one by one with you.' That's such a lovely way to say, we don't know where this ends. We don't know how we're going to feel about it, but we trust each other enough and we want to explore together at whatever pace feels right for both of us.

Ben

I am less concerned, I think, with certain styles of Japanese shows delving into onscreen depictions of sex and sexuality because of the space those shows fill. Zenra Meshi, What Did You Eat Yesterday?, and this show. The ton of sensuality in the food stuff supports the thinking around sex and intimacy, and I'm really glad they had the hug and kiss scene to make sure that we didn't skip that? But I don't necessarily need to see it in the show, in the sense that I'm okay with just confirming that it's gonna happen, or it is happening. What I do need NHK and TV Tokyo to figure out is: how does the cast of this show meet the cast of What Did You Eat Yesterday? There has to be a way to get these two stories a crossover.

NiNi

It does feel like there needs to be a crossover between these two stories. The new place that they've moved into, I'm pretty sure it's in Shiro and Kenji's building, like it has to be. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me in my head. [laughs]

What you were saying about seeing it on screen, it's not necessarily that I need to see their physical intimacy on screen, or whether there is physical intimacy on screen. I just need to understand, I think, if it was something that they were even gonna talk about or discuss, or if it was something that they wanted or not wanted. I think that it's fine for me for them to have the conversation and say, 'Okay, let's figure this out.' And if that lands upon them not being physically intimate that's fine, if it lands up on them being physically intimate, that's fine, but I think what I was worried about, and maybe I shouldn't have been, was that they were not going to talk about it at all.

Ben

I'm very glad that they had a conversation about it before they moved out, and established that it is something that they want, even if it's something they're gonna have to figure it out.

NiNi

Most definitely, but let's move back to the part where they're moving into Shiro and Kenji's building, because I feel like somehow that has to happen. And I feel like somebody needs to slip Nishijima and Uchino a note that says, 'Hey. Y'all are good at making stuff happen. Make this happen, too. Find a way.'

Ben

It's just difficult because it's an NHK adaptation versus TV Tokyo and I don't know how that plays out because one is a for-profit broadcaster and the other is explicitly a public entity.

NiNi

Figure it out. [Ben and NiNi laugh] I don't care if it's a movie, I don't care if it's a special, I don't care what it is. They need to figure this out, because there's no way that these two shows are not existing in the same universe. They have to.

00:50:53 - SLTCSLTE Ratings and Outro

Ben

I think that's it. This show is excellent. I guess we should rate it. Let's go around. 

Ginny, you're newest to this. What's your rating for this?

Ginny

I gave season one a 9 and season two a 10. Season one felt a little incomplete to me, but season two sewed it up. If I was rating them together, I would give them a 10 as a single experience.

Ben

What about you, NiNi?

NiNi

Why you even asking me? You know my answer. This is a 10.

Ben

It's a 10! 10s across the board. Go watch it right now and then when you're finished, go show it to a friend, and then make them show it to a friend. I'm not even kidding. This is excellent. This is going to have to get a new supercut for me on the show. I’m gonna have to mention this every goddamn recording we do after this. [Ginny and NiNi laugh]

NiNi

It's a good thing Ginny's here because now she goes, she's like, okay, so I'm looking for What Did You Eat Yesterday? and then She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat.

Ginny

Making notes.

Ben

It was really just so lovely. One of the things I really enjoy in my queer stories is realistic and believable-feeling friend groups around them. It's really important for me, not just that I believe in the integrity of the couple, but also the integrity of their network. And I really like when queer friend groups grow as a result of two other people finding something in each other, that was really important for me. And it's why this particular show is so special to me. I really love this show, so much. Please go watch it.

NiNi

And with that, that's all she wrote. That is going to wrap us up, say bye to the people. 

Say bye Ginny!

Ginny

Bye!

NiNi

Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#chaser game w #she loves to cook and she loves to eat #tsukuritai onna to tabetai onna #japanese gl #gl series #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation #lgbtq #podcast #spring series #spring 2024

[azuresage]

It gets talked about a lot but I still can't stop nerding out about Link's characterization in TotK. It's done through his many creative dialogue choices and his expressions of course, but it's also done so subtly through what he *doesn't* say. Notably, he doesn't talk about himself. And this is why nobody recognizes him unless they've already met him. Because he doesn't tell them when they've got the wrong impression of him.

The meme about Link having Tony Hawk syndrome is so real. People will look at him and straight up say, "Wow, you look exactly like Link!" without a hint of irony. Lookout Landing has a detailed picture of his face in their watchtower and the search party still doesn't recognize him. Penn works with Link for a long time and thinks he's unlucky that the Yiga keep "mistaking" him for the Hero (granted, Traysi asked him to deliberately keep quiet, but Penn still didn't put two and two together himself). I think the reason for this, aside from it being really, really funny, is that Link just doesn't talk about himself. He doesn't feel the need to.

Characterization isn't just about what we see a character doing, it's also about how other characters respond to them. Link is so unassuming and humble that he doesn't match people's expectations of what "Link" should be like. The three Gerudo ladies hanging out around Outskirt Stable are one of many perfect examples. Link stands in front of them carrying the Master Sword, but they expect the Hero to be taller than they are, with a giant glowing sword, so they don’t believe it's him. Obviously that's not the reality, but they don't know that. Link doesn't correct them, either. Again, he doesn't feel the need to.

This is also why many NPCs from BotW don't recognize or remember Link. To them, he was just a passerby that did them a good turn once 6+ years ago. Nobody's going to remember a person like that for so long after. They had no way of knowing he was the Hero, unless it came up for story quest reasons. When they hear stories about the Princess's Appointed Knight who woke up from his 100 year nap, defeated the Calamity, and rescued Zelda, they imagine someone larger than life. Then when they see what Link actually is like, they can't put two and two together.

This is true even during the Hyrule Restoration efforts. Link always follows behind Zelda as her shadow, which she notes in her diary, but the people in the stable investigation quests and in Hateno don't recognize him either, even though he went everywhere she did. Link is just that unassuming. He resigns himself to being a shadow, allowing Zelda to take the lead and do as she pleases but always staying nearby to support and protect her. He doesn't need to be recognizable to do his job. And we know from both BotW and now TotK that he's wholly devoted to her. He's content with this. Many people more eloquent than I have spent many paragraphs elaborating on this. I just wanted to focus on what it says about his character.

Link is humble and unassuming, so much so that nobody believes that he's the Hero unless they already know him. He's devoted to Zelda, so much so that he's willing to do anything to chase even a glimpse of her. He doesn't talk about himself or correct people who have the wrong impression of him. He doesn't need to do that to chase his Zelda. He is a person of great humility in spite of his station. I think that's so interesting and neat how the comedy of him being unrecognizable also tells us all this about him. It's also cool how this is only one aspect of him; all the dialogue choices and expressions he makes during cutscenes and actions out in the world show a whole other, lighter side to him that meshes with this. It's all so good. I am in love with it. It always kills me inside when people dismiss his characterization as being nonexistant or flat just because it's not spoonfed to them or when they say Link being unrecognizable is lazy writing instead of a deliberate choice. I am biting and gnawing and gnashing over him and his relationship to Zelda. I love them so much.

#legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #zelda theory #link #this was swirling in my brain cuz i just started replaying totk i had to jot it down #this game is peak fiction. my favorite of all time.

[akookminsupporter]

I'm a diff anon, but:

"Okay, but I don't understand why this ended up with BTS being dragged into a mess that has nothing to do with them in the first place? This started with the lady from the coup, right?"

Yes. In short, HYBE ordered an audit on ADOR because they found proof that MHJ and a man planned to make ADOR a separate company, Mhj and the man talked with shareholders to try to get them to back them(ador) up so they can leave hybe. This is how it started and then later on a bunch of other stuff came out.. Reddit has master posts of this, you can find them if you want to read more about it

So after the news came out about the audit, she started responding to it, she claimed hybe copied newjeans to make Illit, she claimed that she was promised to debut hybe's first gg but they debuted le sserafim first instead, she implied that she was in a slave contract. So she namedropped 2 groups first. And then somehow some article reported that she went to a shaman to discuss BTS' enlistment and when they would go and so the shaman could make sure they really go? The last part is a bit confusing because idk how a shaman could make them go but yeah. And that's how BTS got into the picture. She later basically admitted this by rambling about how this shaman is just a friend of hers who just happens to be a shaman.

"Why did BTS end up being the bad guys again?"

Because nothing unites kpop fans more than hating on bts. BTS genuinely didn't do anything, kpop fans just started hating on them for no reason and they kept making tweets about "xy group disbanded because of hybe"

"It makes sense that BigHit decided to hire an external legal team instead of using HYBE's or even their own agency's."

In my understanding, they hired this external legal team or set up this law firm to deal with the hate campaign against Bts. There are a lot of conspiracy theories going around rn, about BTS/hybe being in a cult and K-pop fans being kpop fans and bringing up everything they can about bts' past. So I think this second legal team is just for the BTS issue so that the hybe legal team can fully focus on bringing mhj to court. Again, this is just how I interpreted it.

Hello, anon. Thanks you as well for providing a bit more context on everything that's going on. If you don't mind, I have a few things to comment on regarding what you said, and also, I have a couple of questions that I hope won't offend anyone:

1. Regarding the accusations made by that woman about copying NJ: why did she say that? I don't know much about that group, but a girl group in K-pop isn't something new, right? The concept isn’t that… new, I think? And their sound isn't so... unique? From what little I've heard and some comparisons I've seen. Is the new group exactly the same, or what? Does NJ have something unique that can be easily identifiable if someone copies it? And that’s why she said that?

2. She was promised that she would debut the company's first girl group: okay, they didn't do it, and? From what little or much I've read about what this woman has said, I've concluded that she's a tantrum-throwing and pretentious person who cries when she doesn't get what she wants. You know who she reminds me of? Veruca, the character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

3. The shaman thing is complete madness and it’s probably the comedic contribution to all of this😭.

4. The obsession of Kpoppies with BTS should be studied. I can bet that not even the biggest stan in the fandom is as obsessed with them as Kpoppies are. If only they put as much effort into supporting their favorites as they do into hating BTS, they would help them rise above the mediocrity that many are in. At least in terms of sales, streaming, charts, etc., with the quality of content they put out, there's not much they can do.

5. Ahhhh, your explanation about the external legal team makes sense, but at the same time, I wonder if BigHit does have its own legal team, and if it doesn't, I wonder why.

#ask #anon #bts #bts fan opinions #Preg 197 #Kpoppies